


The Pete and Patrick Wedding Extravaganza

by emeraldcitydowntowngirl



Series: Eccentric Times At Barrington High [7]
Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, Halsey (Musician), Panic! at the Disco, The Academy Is...
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Reality Show, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Badlands, Drunken Shenanigans, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Wedding Fluff, Weddings, absolute nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-01 19:02:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 40,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10928049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldcitydowntowngirl/pseuds/emeraldcitydowntowngirl
Summary: In this 3 chapter special, Pete and Patrick finally, finally,finallyget married.(and the same chaos that surrounds the crew of 'Eccentric Times at Barrington High' ensues because... it's pretty much impossible for Patrick to plan something without everything going wrong)





	1. Pre-Wedding

**Author's Note:**

> ch 1) pre-wedding  
> ch 2) wedding  
> ch 3) reception  
> ch 4) post-wedding 
> 
> THE PETERICK WEDDING IS FINALLY HERE!! you guys truly have no idea how pumped i am about writing this, i've been talking about it with my friends literally since april AND IM FINALLY STARTING THE POSTING OF IT?!?!?? WOOOOOOO!!!!! this chapter is kinda a drag because it's the days leading up the wedding but i hope you guys like it because i truly,,,, love writing eccentric 
> 
> a huge thank you to my best friend lili for literally listening to all of my ideas and validating me <3 love u binch

( _Camera pans Patrick’s band room, it’s full of students who are talking over each other with their instruments in their hands, before it lands on Patrick, who’s sitting at the piano. He looks exhausted- his shoulders are slumped, his eyes are droopy, even when he rubs at them to stay awake, and even when he lifts his coffee cup, it looks like it’s taking way more energy than it needs to_ )

PATRICK: I haven’t slept properly in 3 days… I think my biggest regret in my entire life, my whole 28 years of living, was not getting a ~~fucking~~ wedding planner, Jesus Christ. And the thing about planning weddings is that, is that there’s just so much ~~shit~~ that you think doesn’t matter, but it does, and- ugh! It took Pete and I a month to work out the seating, and I just got off the phone with one of Pete’s relatives who can’t stand so-and-so, and can’t sit with so-and-so. But, but the seating is so planned that even if I move one person, I have to redo everything!

PETE: ( _looks like he’s in about the same position as Patrick, exhaustion wise_ ) Yeah, it’s _crazy_. I mean, we’re excited, ~~fuck~~ yeah we’re excited, I can’t wait to marry him, but… we’ve been so busy that we haven’t slept at all. And yesterday, Patrick tried to ( _mimics a blowjob)_  me but then I fell asleep! I fell asleep and I wasn’t even halfway done taking my ~~fucking~~ pants off! How sad is that?!

PATRICK: I tried to go down on Pete yesterday, and he fell asleep on me, but I was kind of grateful, because… I took a nap too. Oops.

PETE: The wedding is in 3 days, and we’re pretty much done with everything. I think. Because you think you’re done, and then Brendon will call, and be like ‘did you remember to-‘ and the answer is always no. We’re, uh, getting married upstate, so we’re making a mini-vacation out of it, especially since we have tomorrow off, and everyone’s staying at this one hotel, and it’s gonna be a lot of fun, I think. If Trick and I get any sleep there, anyways.

GABE: I’m on Pete and Patrick duty ( _groans_ ). It’s not that I don’t want to drive them up there but… I don’t want to drive them. Sue me, okay, they're gonna be hella annoying and talking about how stressful their lives are and ~~shit~~. It could be worse, though, I could have gotten stuck with Ryan and Brendon.

VICKY: Yeah, we’re stuck with Ryan and Brendon. Joe made a joke about chloroforming them, and I would, er, never think about it. No matter how tempting it would be…

PATRICK: And it’s gonna be even crazier, because, because Ashley and Bill are coming down too, and Ashley said she wanted to perform, and I mean, Ashley was my lead last year, and I think we’re… I mean, she’s not my friend, I think, but I definitely _like_ her, so I said yes, but classic Brendon got jealous and made some B.S story that he loved me and wanted to sing to us too, so now I have Brendon and Ashley performing at the reception, and I don’t know how I’m going to set up a keyboard and amps, but you know what… we’re gonna get through it together. Yeah…

\---

( _Camera follows Brendon into Ryan’s classroom. It’s easy to tell that it’s Ryan’s classroom because the windows in the door are covered with pictures of Chris Martin with speech bubbles that say things like ‘Mr. Ross rocks!’ “English is awesome!’ and ‘W.O.T.D: caesura – a break between words within a metric foot’_ )

Brendon swings the door open without knocking and sticks his head into the classroom. Ryan’s busy handing out papers to his freshmen class (Hayley Williams is in the background, quickly jotting down notes on her hand from her notebook), but he looks over when he hears the door creak open. He makes a noise of acknowledgement, a grunt that sounds a lot like ‘hrmph’, and he glances back to his chaotic class just as he finishes handing out the papers and says, “Remember kids- if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying. I’ll be back in a second, good luck!”

He ushers Brendon out of the room, and he closes the door behind him. “Yeah?” he asks, and Brendon excitedly grabs at his arms and pulls him closer, away from the door. “Guess what I just did!!!”

“Uh… I dunno, can you just—“ “No!! Guess!!”

This takes way longer than it needs to- Brendon gives up after Ryan suggests after 4 failed attempts ‘Chris Martin called and asked for a threesome?’ and he wrings his hands in frustration as he screams, “UGH, Ryan, _no_! So, you know how Ashley Frangipane asked Patrick if she could sing at the wedding?”

_[FOOTAGE: Ashley talking at 100 miles an hour to Patrick, who looks half asleep at his phone- “And I just thought, y’know, it could be, like, totally fun! Especially since I wrote the lyrics in Emo Time Trademark, and I first wrote the music on GarageBand which you taught us to use, and, and, and also, you would hear the song before anyone else, isn’t that cool! I also really want to come to the wedding, cause I don’t think it’s fair that Bill gets to come and I don’t, and uh, also, I don’t know if you remember, but I was the one who informed you about Mr. Way leaving, and I was the first Peter-ick shipper, and-“_

_“Ashley. If I say yes, will you leave?” “…Yeah?” “Then yeah, you’re invited, I’ll send an invitation in the mail. Go nuts, can’t wait to hear it, please leave me alone now.” “Thanks, Patrick! Love you!”]_

Ryan shrugs- he doesn’t really keep up with anything that has to do with people he doesn’t really care about. “I guess? Why, what did you—are you going to sing at the wedding too?”

Ryan can already picture it- Brendon, up on a stage, making someone (probably Ryan, but Brendon would go as far as making Patrick play at his own wedding) play the piano as he dances around in a leopard print tuxedo, trying to outshine everyone by doing runs after every line.

“Ding, ding, ding!” Brendon sing-songs, before he says “I told him, I told Patrick that my heart was yearning to share something with them, so I said I would share the best part of myself. Not my ass, that’s for you, but my voice! But you know how I’m still pissed about the whole ‘maid of honor’ thing, right?”

“Yeah,” Ryan says, “but listen, are you gonna do a whole revenge piece, because I’m sure I could find the perfect Coldplay song that-“

“Something better,” Brendon grins, as he rubs his palms together, “something Patrick will never forget, something that will make him regret ever undermining me.”

Ryan watches as his boyfriend continues to chuckle to himself, and he says after a moment, “Am I going to have to guess again? Is it “ ~~Fuck~~ Her Gen-‘”

“YES!!!! ~~FUCK~~ HER GENTLY!!!!” Brendon screams, and the camera zooms in on a hall monitor who’s been sitting there the entire time, watching them with a look of disdain. “ ~~FUCK~~ HER GENTLY! Obviously I’m going to change the lyrics up a little, but—ohhhh, yessss!”

\---

BRENDON: Okay, I know it’s kinda ~~fucked~~ up, but 1) we’re all gonna be drunk as ~~shit~~ and 2) the fact that Patrick didn’t make me his maid of honor is WAY more ~~fucked~~ up. I’m not bitter or anything, though…

\---

“Wow, that’s- wow. You’re really looking to get killed, huh?” Ryan asks, but Brendon waves him off, “It’s fine, whatever, you know, Patrick put Gabe and Travie in charge of music? Whatever they’re gonna play is gonna be 10 times as vulgar, but it’s not gonna have the added benefit of my beautiful voice attached to it. But _wait_ , I didn’t even get to the best part!!”

“What?” Ryan asks, this time genuinely intrigued, he’s not sure what else Brendon can do, maybe get up there naked maybe, but the smile on his face is instantly dropped when Brendon says, “I volunteered you too! You’re gonna be singing with me! Wooooo! Duet partner!”

Ryan looks into the camera and just blinks as Brendon continues to gush- “We’re gonna sound so good! Ashley Frangipane, who?! ~~Shit~~ , can you practice with me next period? I have class, but this is way more important, I already have the whole thing in my head, I think your soft and fragile, that’s a compliment, by the way, voice will go so well with my passionate one, we just have to find a perfect balance! The world isn’t ready for us!”

\---

RYAN: Brendon is always singing that song around the apartment, so it’s not going to be hard learning in it the… uh, 4 hours before we have to leave to drive up to the hotel. My problem lies directly in the fact that we’re not singing Coldplay, and the fact that Brendon really expects me to get up and sing ‘ ~~Fuck~~ Him Gently’ to Pete and Patrick. And yeah, Brendon changed the lyric to ‘ ~~Fuck~~ Him Gently’. You don’t always have to ~~fuck~~ him hard…

BRENDON: IN FACT SOMETIMES IT’S NOT RIGHT TO DO.

RYAN: Sometimes you got to make some love…

BRENDON: AND ~~FUCKIN~~ ’ GIVE HIM SOME SMOOCHES TOOOOOOOOOOO ( _does a vocal run on that last note_ )

\---

( _Back in NYC- Ashley’s in the kitchen making coffee, while Bill’s in the living room of their 2 bedroom apartment, folding clothes into suitcases. Ashley’s also on the phone with her manager, which is why every couple of seconds, she looks over at Bill and pretends to start puking._ )

“Dally Long Legs, _calm down_! I’ll be back by Monday, the wedding is on Saturday and we’re spending all of Sunday on the train, we’ll be back way before midnight, and—no, we’re not going to get murdered on the way there, I carry pepper spray with me all of time, and—I’ll be sleeping, Josh is gonna be with us, he’s filming it with Tyler, he’s here right now, he said he’d fight off anyone who looked sus, so I’ll be wide awake to do phone interviews, I swear. And I’m not gonna lie anymore and tell all of the journalists that ‘Hold Me Down’ is about blowjobs.”

She catches William’s eye, and they both grin at each other- cause _‘he’s got me down on both knees_ ’ definitely has a double meaning.

“You always underestimate me and my ability to bullshit. I don’t think you understand, Dally Long Legs- I took A.P Government, I can handle stress. Actually, now that I think about it, I’m gonna see if Hank and John Green have uploaded a video about how to deal with annoying managers… I’m kidding! _I’m kidding_!”

There’s a silence for a moment, because Dallon’s talking, and in this time, she reaches into a cupboard and pulls out two mugs- ‘#1 Dad’ is on one and the other mug looks homemade.

“Listen, I’ll do my phone interview on the train, I already scheduled it, and we’re leaving in an hour. I even set an alarm! And I would never ignore my Evanescence alarm. Like, “wake me up inside _and_ outside… oh, you have to go? Aw, so sad. Okay, love you lots, don’t call me back, bye.”

When she hangs up, she lets out a loud “UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”, and she pours out some coffee into the mugs, before she reaches into the freezer to put a couple of ice cubes in, to make it drinkable. “How are you holding up, Billiam?”

“I can’t get this suitcase to close,” he says, and when Ashley comes into the living room, holding their coffee, now filled with creamer and sugar, she finds him sitting on top of one of them. He’s got his hair tied up because he’s sweating, and Ashley laughs, “You have to, like, jump on it. You weigh nothing, it’s not gonna work like that. Maybe if you put a couple of your textbooks on it?”

She hands him his cup, and he wipes away some of the sweat on his eyebrow before he takes a sip. “Okay, you do it then, I’m too tired. Is Dallon nervous about Monday?”

He slides off the suitcase, and sits criss-cross apple-sauce, as Ashley gets up on the suitcase, and starts bouncing on it as she talks (although it looks more like she’s stomping- her coffee starts spilling but she doesn’t stop) “Yeah, he’s two seconds away from ~~shitting~~ himself, he keeps riding my ass. But I guess he doesn’t want it to flop _. I_ don’t want it to flop, but I feel like I’m so numb right now. My _album_ is coming out in 4 days and all I can think about is getting fries at the diner and hanging out with Mike and The Butcher, and everyone.”

\---

ASHLEY: So… Badlands is coming out on Monday. Like Monday that’s 4 ~~fucking~~ days away Monday. And I’m excited! Really! I just- I just listen to those songs, and I can’t believe that I recorded them, you know… like it feels so intimate. My parents are going to hear about me losing my virginity… Sisky’s gonna hear the songs about him… and I love sharing parts of myself with people, I let people into my life just with _this_ , but… wow, it’s just really nerve-wracking. What if no one likes it? What if everyone hears it and hates it, and thinks I’m a narcissist or a villain or something… ( _frowns_ ) People liked the first two singles, Hold Me Down and Colors, but people keep telling me that I’m ( _does airquotes_ ) fake deep and so ‘tumblr’, and I just want to yell at them, like, no, I’m being so ~~fucking~~ genuine! But it’s not good for press, and whatever. People want to know me, but I can’t be real anymore. Except here, anyways. ( _gives the camera a small smile_ ) You guys got to know me before I was Halsey, so that’s cool. At least when management rules over my life, everyone will know that I’m just a dumb teenager from Chicago who’s trying to figure herself out just like everyone else.

\---

“Well, no one wants it to flop,” William says, taking another sip of his coffee, before he winces. “Too much sugar, want it?”

He hands his cup to her, and she holds both of them in her hands, and William winces again when more coffee sloshes out of the mugs. “Okay, nevermind, stop jumping, I’m going to try to zip this up.”

He avoids the wet spots on the floor as he tries to zip up the suitcase, and Ashley says, “Yeah, no ~~shit~~. I’m just- ugh. I don’t know. Stressing about stuff that doesn’t matter. I need to get laid.”

“Ew, gross,” William says, “plus, everyone knows you’re going to hook up with Sisky when we get back there, so you don’t have to wait very long.”

Ashley frowns and says seriously, a very rare occurrence, “You don’t know that, I’m not going to do that.”

\---

WILLIAM: Yeah, Ash says these things, but everyone knows it’s going to happen. I’m not sure what about Sisky is so… Halsey-lyric-y, mostly because when I think of Sisky, I think about my best friend who didn’t shower or eat for 2 whole days because he was playing Wii Sports Resort. _Will Sports Resort_. Like… ‘ _you’re ripped at every edge but you’re a masterpiece’_ , yeah, ripped because he spent two days playing Table Tennis on Wii…

\---

“Why would you say that?” she asks, “You know that I made a—“

“I know,” he groans, “I know that you made a promise not to, I was making a joke.”

“No you weren’t! You totally weren’t joking, you think I’m going to hook up with him!”

They glare at each other for a second, trying to read each other’s facial expressions. But William slumps his shoulders after a moment, and goes back to trying to zip up the suitcase. “You guys are just so… on and off again. And you always say that you’re not going to hook up with him, but you did when we visited for Christmas, and you did all the way back in August. And Sisky told me that you guys started talking, and-“

“We’re not _talking_ , talking! He just texted me about ‘Colors’ and then… y’know, we sexted, but I was drunk, so it doesn’t count. Can we change the subject?! What the hell did you pack to make it this difficult to close?”

William’s cheeks turn pink, and he doesn’t directly answer the question. “Uh… just some stuff… nothing important.”

“Ew,” she laughs, all of the hostility is gone, “and you’re letting me jump on it?”

He shrugs. “I stuffed it between my clothes so that it wouldn’t break when I inevitably drop these bags 20 times before we even get there, and—oh, ~~shit~~ , I got it!”

The bag is fully zipped, even though it looks like it’s seconds away from bursting. But it’s closed, and that’s all that matters. “Yeah!” Ashley cheers, and she throws her hands up, mugs and all. The warm, thankfully not scalding, coffee spills all over Bill, it gets in his shoulder-length hair, and they both say at the same time, “ ~~Fuck~~!”

\---

_(Back in Chicago- Everyone’s hanging out in the parking garage of Pete and Patrick’s apartment, waiting for Pete and Patrick to come down. In the background, Brendon’s posing on the hood of someone else’s car as Ryan takes pictures of him, but in the foreground, Vicky, Joe, and Travie are talking)_

“Wait, are you for real?” Travie asks, leaning in closer to Vicky and Joe, “ _Pregnant_? Like… in 9 months, there’s gonna be an Asher-Trohman baby out in the world? And this isn’t some, some scare, like the last time?”

Everyone remembers the scare- the 9 pregnancy tests Vicky took before she exclaimed ‘FUCK YEAH, I’M NOT PREGNANT! THANK GOD!’

“Well, er… 7 months, technically,” Vicky says, brushing her bangs out of her face, and Travie’s eyes widen, “but you can’t say ~~shit~~! Okay?! You can’t say a word! I’m not like _Brendon_ , I don’t want this weekend to be about me.”

The 3 of them look over to Brendon- he’s looking at the pictures Ryan took of him, and he sighs, “Too ugly, do it again. Should I lie on my other side?” – and then they look back at each other.

“Yeah, we just wanted to tell you, cause… wait, why did we want to tell him again?” Joe asks, mostly to himself, but then he shrugs. “Oh well.”

“Yeah, you just kind of have the face for it. Like, y’know… we had to tell someone, it might as well be you. That way no one asks why I’m not drinking tomorrow.”

\---

VICKY: The fact that I’m going to have to deal with this weekend SOBER… kill me now. Also, I haven’t tried on the dress I’m supposed to wear since Patrick put me in the wedding party since I got it fitted before I was pregnant, and… I’m afraid to look. But Joe said that I don’t look like I’m pregnant, it just looks like I have a food baby from eating too much Taco Bell, so I’m going to just try to blame this on Patrick. ‘This is your fault, Patrick, for giving us lots of food before the wedding. Now I look like I’m pregnant, and I’m definitely not!’

JOE: It’s kind of been hard hiding it from everyone. But it’s also fun because at parties, Vicky just hands her drinks to me, and I get double. Er… sorry Baby Asher-Trohman... I’m not an alcoholic… Nor was I ever addicted to weed or cigarettes or vaping… Yeah, I was addicted to vaping for a while, the grape flavor still haunts me… tastes like love…

\---

“Wait,” Travie laughs, even though Vicky looks like she’s two seconds away from stabbing him in the eyes, “you’re going to get through this weekend sober? HAHA. Oh ~~shit~~ , good luck. It might not be that bad, you’ll be able to watch everyone get stupid and drunk. I don’t think Ryan’s drinking either.”

\---

RYAN: No, I’m not gonna drink… there’s too much risk in me drinking.

BRENDON: It’s because Ryan turns into a Grade-A Slut when he drinks. Kinda like Patrick, but worse.

RYAN: No, I don’t! I just don’t like knowing that people are seeing me in a state where I can’t control my actions or what I say.

BRENDON: Yeah, no, he’s lying through his teeth, it’s cause Ryan’s a ~~fucking~~ slut when he’s drunk. It’s okay, though! I accept him for the drunk slut that he is _(holds a hand to his heart_ ) because he’s my drunk slut.

RYAN: …Whatever.

\---

“I guess, I guess,” Vicky shrugs, “I should probably stop being reliant on it, anyways. And you’re right about watching everyone get hammered- can’t wait for Patrick to let loose. I feel kinda bad for him, he looks like he’s about two seconds away from passing out with nervousness.”

“I offered to make him some weed brownies, but he just flipped me off.” Joe says sadly. “If I can’t have em’, someone should, y’know?”

But then he pulls off his backpack, and hands Travie a container full of brownies anyways. “I made them either way, in case you want. Or in case we have to drug Patrick at the rehearsal dinner. Just kidding…”

Travie takes the container, and places it on top of his suitcase. “Alright, thanks. But wait, can we—pregnant?! You?! But… I thought that you guys hated kids? This is so ~~fucking~~ crazy, Patrick’s getting married, you guys are having a baby… we’re getting _old_. Did you guys- I mean, sonograms? Names? Gender? Oh ~~shit~~ , there’s going to be a _baby_. I feel like I’m getting mind ~~fucked~~ right now.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Vicky says, and Joe quickly interrupts, “I didn’t”, “but then Joe found out and then I heard him talking to his brother and asking whether or not we should paint the room blue, or if we should go with a gender neutral yellow, or if we should just say ‘ ~~fuck~~ it’, and paint the room black because Joe wants the baby to be ‘emo’ so that they can listen to Morrissey together and cry together. So…”

Joe buries his head in his hands. “Why did you have to tell him all of the details… my endless love for Morrissey needs to be shared with someone, it might as well be with my emo child. And either way, he said to paint the room red so that it reminds him of his original home- the uterus.”

“That’s- Joe, shut up!” Vicky says, Travie’s silent with awe- they’re having a _son_ , “But we decided that we should paint the room purple, because that’s our favorite color, and purple is the color of grape vape, which is our favorite flavor.”

“I ~~fucking~~ love grape vape… Sometimes I dream about it.” Joe says, seriously.

“But we didn’t come up with a name yet, we have… like, so much time to do that. And you know the second Brendon catches wind of this, he’s gonna be texting me ‘Name your baby Brendon, name your baby Brendon’ _which is why_ , you can’t say anything to anyone!”

“I’m not! Swear on my life!” Travie exclaims, “You can trust me!”

“Hey, what are we talking about?” Brendon asks, peeking his head between Vicky and Joe’s shoulders, and Joe jumps in surprise at the new addition to the group. “You can trust Travie with what?”

“Weed brownies.” Travie answers easily, and Brendon scrunches his nose. “Oh. I thought it was something actually good, like… Gabe hooking up with another student. Oh, ~~shit~~ , that would be so good!”

“Bill’s gonna be there, so you probably shouldn’t say ~~shit~~ like that,” Travie says, and Brendon shrugs, before he shows everyone Ryan’s phone’s camera roll. “Boooooring. Anyways- which picture should I post? Don’t swipe to the left, cause I’m naked in that picture.”

\---

RYAN: My camera roll consists of just pictures of Chris Martin and Brendon and my dog. I think I have more pictures of Chris Martin though, sorry. That’s just how it is.

\---

Ryan joins the group as well, but Brendon doesn’t get very far in choosing a picture to post, because Gabe, Pete, and Patrick, all holding luggage, walk their way.

“WE’RE FINALLY DONE!” Gabe cheers, he’s holding the most luggage, “These guys are packing so much ~~shit~~ , it’s kind of ridiculous.”

 

“You try packing for a wedding, and then talk to me.” Patrick drops the bags on the ground, and  he rolls his shoulders. “Gangs all here?” he asks, looking between everyone, counting heads, before he gives everyone an exhausted smile. “Okay, I think we’re good _. Holy ~~shit~~.”_

“Wait, hold on, I have a gift for you!” Brendon says, before he holds a finger up, telling them to wait. He climbs into Vicky’s car through the window even though the door was open, and fishes out a CD. “I made you a road trip wedding playlist, so that we can listen to the same thing at the same time, and it’d be like we were in the same car!”

Ryan peers down at the CD cover where Brendon wrote down the names of the songs, and he visibly gags.

“Oh… thanks, Brendon.” Patrick says, before he hands the CD to Gabe. “We’ll, uh, listen to it, definitely.”

After that, everyone packs up and heads into their cars- Vicky’s got Joe, Brendon, and Ryan with her, and Gabe’s with Travie, Pete, and Patrick. Gabe puts the CD into the stereo, and he sighs as he says to Travie, “At least I know I’m going to be wide awake”, just as ‘The Sweet Escape’ by Gwen Stefani begins to play.

And then, they set off for upstate.

\---

( _CHICAGO- It’s 4:03am on Saturday morning, and Ashley’s sitting out on the porch of her parent’s house, with Sisky and Bill. There’s a backstory to this: Mike, The Butcher, and Sisky had all come over to hang out when they got into Chicago, and they did, the evidence is in the garbage bag with a whole bunch of containers from takeout from the dinner, but all of them had left around 3:30. All except Sisky, because Bill is a genius and can predict this shit from a mile away. So now, they’re sitting outside, wrapped in blankets.)_

“I don’t want you to leave,” Ashley says, frowning as she takes a sip out of her soda, “I know that you have to, but I don’t want you to.”

She’s talking to Sisky- William’s watching Netflix, not paying them any attention.

Sisky shrugs. “I can drive you guys up if you want. I don’t want to leave you either. I, like… miss you. I’m not as lyrical as you, but… I miss you a lot.”

“I’m not _lyrical_ , I just… y’know…”

A lot of this is empty talking. They’re sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce across from each other, and it’s dark outside, but they’re holding hands when she’s not picking up her can of Sprite. The essence of every Halsey song Ashley has ever written- Sisky’s hazel eyes, his curly hair, William choking over laughter every couple of minutes, breaking their silence.

“I just _like_ writing. Like my Destiel sex scenes I made you read,” she says, “and all of the fanfics I sent for you to leaf through. Except now, it’s my life and I’m setting it to ~~shitty~~ music, and I get to have people tell me that I’m just over-exaggerating, and that I’m a bitch, or something.”

She sighs, and buries her head in her hands, rubs at her eyes a little, tries to get the exhaustion to leave her body. “Sorry. I’m just nervous about Monday. No one is going to like it, I know it, I got my big break, and I blew it. Now I just have to wait for someone to read my Supernatural fanfic and pull a 50 Shades with it.”

“Your music is good!” Sisky tries to argue, “I really like it! And not just cause it’s about me, seriously! I pre-ordered it and everything. You’re magic, Ash. You can do anything.”

She takes a sip of her Sprite. “No. I’m a fake-deep bitch. Whatever, I don’t… I don’t want to care what everyone thinks about me, that’s the whole ~~fucking~~ point, but I do. I _do_ care.”

“And that’s a good thing! It’s like that, um, Harry Potter quote? The fact that you care makes you human.”

“Yeah, but that’s about, like, people dying and stuff. It’s not about writing music and putting it out, and having people sit and put me under a microscope and finding everything wrong with it.”

Sisky shakes his head, “No, but that’s the thing! If you really didn’t care about what people thought about you, then you wouldn’t be relatable anymore. Not that you have to write to _be_ relatable, but y’know… people relate to caring. People relate to be hurt. You shouldn’t rely on the validation of everyone else, but caring about what people think about you? That’s everyone. You’re allowed to be angry. You don’t have to take everything and pretend like you don’t care, because that’s not you. You’re an emotional person, you shouldn’t have to change that aspect about yourself just because you’re famous now.”

“You don’t get it,” she stresses, “you don’t get how it feels to read through negative comments.”

“So read the nice ones.” Sisky says, simply. “Or just text me. I’ll always compliment you.”

\---

SISKY: Oh wow, I haven’t been in front of this camera in a while. But anyways, yeah, it’s not weird hearing Ash sing about me… she would out me and call me out on my ~~shit~~ in Emo Time Trademark all of the time, I’m kinda used to hearing her publicly airing stuff out. And it’s nothing bad, kinda… I mean, Colors is about us fighting over something stupid. It wasn’t the nature of our entire relationship, you know?

\---

Ashley ducks her head, and smiles. “Shut up. I never take anything you say seriously, you liked my writing from 2012.”

“Better than anything I could do,” he says offhandedly, and she flicks him on the knee as she says jokingly, “Stop. I’m supposed to be the self-deprecating one in this relationship, not the other way around.”

They both look up at the word ‘relationship’, but it’s 4:15am. Not really the best time for discussing the nature of their friendship or whatever the fuck.

It’s silent again, and Ashley opens her mouth to say something, but William yawns loudly, and he pulls himself off of the chair he was lounging on. “Alright, I’m really tired, I think I’m going to head in. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Considering the fact that you hooked up with your Spanish teacher, I-“ Sisky tries to say, but William points an accusatory finger in his way and he says through his teeth, “Not in the mood, jackass. Ash, you coming?”

She shakes her head. “I’m not tired.”

She yawns, though. 

“…alright,” he says, he knows what she’s playing at, “I’ll be _in the room_. Goodnight.”

Both Ashley and Sisky wave goodnight to him, and he walks into the house. He’s staying in Ashley’s room with her, which is supposed to be some sort of hint, like ‘Don’t have sex with Sisky while I’m asleep next to you’, but these lines are blurred, on the account that Ashley doesn’t care. She doesn't care if Bill throws a 'told you so' her way because she's breaking her promise 6 hours in, or if he makes fun of her.

“So,” she says to him, once Bill has gone inside, “do you need to go home now?”

He shakes his head. “I’ll just text my parents and say I’m staying at Mike’s.”

“Good,” she says, “you should come upstairs with me, then. We have to give him some time to fall asleep, though. Wanna make-out?”

\---

( _4:03am (around the exact time that Josh was filming Ashley and Sisky)- Camera pans the lobby of the hotel that everyone is staying at. It’s really beautiful, there’s an aquarium that spans an entire wall, and there’s a fountain in the middle, where the water comes out in different colors thanks to multicolored lights. Vicky’s at the counter trying to work out the room situation, she’s the one that everyone sends because she looks the most intimidating, and everyone else is lounging in the waiting area on couches_ )

“When’s everyone going to get here?” Brendon asks, as he cuddles in closer to Ryan. He’s not necessarily in his lap, but it’s getting there, and Ryan looks so tired, he couldn’t care less. He wraps his arm around Brendon’s waist and rubs circles where Brendon’s skin is exposed, but he’s a lot less awake than him. “I wanna party!” Brendon continues to say, and he looks over to Patrick for this: “And _your_ brother is the one who’s bringing all of the booze for the bachelor party that we never got to throw.”

Patrick, who got a good sleep in the car but still looks kinda dead, closes his eyes and moans miserably, “Nooooooooooooo, no party. We have no time.”

“Yeah, okay,” Brendon says, dismissing him, but then Patrick opens his eyes and tries to use his ‘teacher glare’ on Brendon, which doesn’t necessarily work because Patrick doesn’t have much of a handle on his students, “I don’t _want_ a party, I just— _sleep_. No one is going to party in the middle of the day.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Travie says, “that’s why we’re doing it tomorrow _night_.”

Patrick whips his head around, and he cries, “Wait, you’re in on this?!”

“I _am_ the best man, I planned the whole thing,” Travie says easily, “and listen, it’ll be fun! Your brother is bringing your favorite liquor, I put Brendon in charge of music, it’ll be good.”

The camera zooms in on Patrick’s horrified face, right at ‘ _I put Brendon in charge of music’_ , but then Travie laughs, and says “Kidding! Kidding, I’m in charge of music.”

“Wait, is that an insult? Wowwww, Travie. Watch out, you’re on my list.” Brendon says to Travie, and he looks like he’s gearing up to say more, because his car playlist was, in his opinion, clearly, the best thing that ever happened to them, but then Pete suddenly jolts up. “Hold on a second, I’m a bachelor too. I’m not—why isn’t anyone throwing _me_ a bachelor party?”

“Cause you’re the unofficial bride? Come on, Pete. Catch the ~~fuck~~ up,” Brendon says, and Pete looks into the camera with exasperation as Brendon continues, “And yeah, no, Patrick, we’re having the party after the rehearsal dinner.”

“Okay, so where’s my bachelorette party?” Pete whines, “If I’m the bride, I want wine, Sex in the City, Patrick stripping, the whole works.”

Patrick laughs, and he leans over to flick Pete on the knee. “Ha, good one. But that’s a cute thought. Pay Gabe to be the stripper, although he’d probably do it for free.”

The camera focuses on Gabe, who’s fast asleep. He drove the whole way.

“Low blow,” Pete says through a laugh, “the kid’s not even up to defend himself.”

Patrick shrugs, before he goes back to the party idea. “But just so we’re—no party. I need to get more than 3 hours of sleep before I ~~fucking~~ get married.”

“Wait, one more thing,” Pete says, he’s in a nit-picking kind of mood, “am I not invited to the party? This ~~fuckin~~ ’ sucks, everyone’s gonna be with you and I’m gonna be all alone in my room watching the news or something.”

“Ramona?” Patrick offers, Ramona is Pete’s 23 year old sister and their maid of honor, and Joe pipes up, “Victoria, too.”

“ _Vicky_? Vicky’s gonna be slamming drinks with you guys and not even be hungover the next day,” Pete sighs, “But it’s cool. I guess you’re right, I haven’t seen my family in forever, maybe I shouldn’t go out and get drunk out of my mind.”

“But it’s so much fun…” Brendon says, mostly to himself.

Joe and Travie share a glance at the comment about Vicky drinking, but they quickly look away.

“I, for one, want Pete to be there, if there _has_ to be a party, _which I hope there won’t be_ ,” Patrick says, reaching his hand out so that Pete can hold it, “but he has to leave before midnight, I can’t see him before the ceremony.”

\---

PATRICK: I’m actually a very superstitious person… like, I never sweep people’s feet or walk under ladders because those are bad omens. And so… _(laughs nervously_ ) the superstition about it being bad luck to see the person you’re going to marry before the ceremony? I believe that… like, my parents thought it was stupid, and they saw each other before the wedding, and you know what happened? _Divorce_.

BRENDON: I only believe in ~~cock~~ , and in music, so… _(takes a sip out of his wine cooler_ ) Superstitions are so stupid, Patrick sounds like my mom. ( _mimics her voice_ ) Brendon, don’t open the umbrella in the house, it’s bad luck! _(normal voice_ ) Like, what the ~~fuck~~ do you want me to do? Open it when I’m outside and get wet?! ~~Fuck~~! ( _presses his hand to his head_ ) I’m getting a headache just thinking about it.

\---

“Are you serious? Wait, is that why you and Pete have separate rooms?” Brendon asks, “I thought it was because you didn’t want to ~~fuck~~ him before the wedding or something along the lines of that.”

“Actually, one more thing,” Pete says, “why does everyone always assume _I’m_ getting ~~fucked~~?”

Brendon crosses his arms. “There’s nothing wrong with bottoming. Accept yourself for the bottom that you are. And no one assumes anything, you literally admit to it!”

“I’m—“ Pete tries to say, but then he slumps his shoulders, and waves it off. Patrick’s skin is flushed pink now, but he tries to change the subject as he says, “Yeah, I don’t want to see Pete until we’re walking down the aisles. It’s bad luck, I already have too much of it, it’s kind of ridiculous.”

“I’d want to see Ryan before,” Brendon says, and Ryan perks up at the sound of his name, “because I wouldn’t want him looking ugly in the pictures, so I’d do his hair for him. And also, before-the-wedding sex sounds so sleazy and hot, I love it.”

“Sometimes Brendon has us roleplay it.” Ryan rolls his eyes, but Brendon is quick to reply, “It’s hot, though! Plus, I never question your Chris Martin fantasies.”

\---

RYAN: Before a big show, Chris—( _the entire rest of the Ryan’s one-on-one is bleeped out, and it was so bad that they had to place a black bar over his mouth so that no one could read his lips. He does make some pretty interesting hand gestures though_ )

\---

Vicky returns back to where everyone else is, and she hands them their room keys, “My present for doing this ~~shit~~ for you guys is not none of you asking me for any more favors”, and after she sits down between Joe and Patrick, the automatic doors to the lobby open, and a 20-something year old girl with short but wild and curly hair and face full of piercings walks in with some suitcases.

“Pete?! Is that you?!” she calls out, and Pete looks up from burying his head in Ryan’s shoulder, and he squints, “Ramona?!”

She looks exactly like what a younger, female version of Pete would look like- she’s tiny, with dark brown skin, and hazel eyes. Brendon clasps a hand over his mouth and he says in disbelief, “Holy ~~_shit_~~ , the emo runs in the family, huh?!” because her black eyeshadow is packed on heavily, and she has two nose piercings, one in her eyebrow, and when she runs to where Pete is and tackles him with a hug, a tattoo of a long poem peeks out from the hem of her tee-shirt. “Jesus ~~_fuck_~~ ,” she says to him, “marriage!”

She looks over to Patrick, and she hugs him too. “Patrick!!!!”

The rest of Pete’s family follows behind Ramona, Pete’s younger brother, his parents, his cousins and aunts and uncles, (“ _How’d they all come together_?” Ryan asks under his breath), and Patrick gets up and greets them too. It’s total commotion, Pete’s parents flock to Patrick and they fuss over him, and Ramona and Pete, and some of their cousins huddle together and start overlapping each other in attempts to get words in, “I can’t believe you’re getting married, it seems like just yesterday you were reciting poetry at Thanksgiving dinner about being forever alone and being thankful only because death was going to come for us all, and—” “Dad almost killed me when I got this piercing—“ “Your mom packed us all food and then this dumbass over here spilled all over the car seat, so then we—,” and so on.

The rest of the group watches on with bleary but excited eyes at all of the noise, even Gabe wakes up from his nap, but they’re quickly saved by Pete’s younger brother (he’s older than Ramona, though) coming up to them and nodding his head in the direction of the bar. “You guys up for drinks?” he asks, and everyone gets up and follows him- even Vicky, cause there’s nothing wrong with virgin Shirley Temples.

Pete’s family is here. The wedding weekend has officially begun… even if it’s 4:30 in the morning.

\---

( _THE NEXT MORNING- ca_ _mera pans the Frangipane dining room- pictures of Ashley and her two little brothers litter the walls, and the table is covered in plates filled with food. Her parents are sitting at the heads of the table, with her brothers on one side, and with her, Sisky, and William on the other. William looks normal, he’s wearing sweatpants and a loose t-shirt, but Sisky’s wearing Ashley’s silk pajama bottoms- a red flag that signals that something went down last night. But it hasn’t been brought up yet_ )

“So,” Ashley’s father says, as he wipes his mouth on a napkin, “what’s the plan for today? Do I need to drive you kids up?”

“Actually, Adam said he would!” Ashley exclaims, beaming up at Sisky. “And we’re going to try to sneak him into the wedding too! We came up with this totally fool-proof master plan last night!”

William knees her under the table, and she quickly adds, “With Bill! Bill was-- Bill was there too, the entire time. He’s, he’s the brains behind the whole operation... valedictorian up in here and whatnot.”

\---

ASHLEY: Oh, no, we _definitely_ ~~fucked~~ last night. It’s just that… Billiam was there with us. Not like a threesome! But you know… I have a queen size bed, he was sleeping on one side, and I was getting ~~my pussy destroyed~~ on the other. I’ve had to overhear way too many Daddy kink skype calls, we’re even now.

WILLIAM: Not even at all! Not—not even at all! It’s one thing to hear your friend having sex, and it’s another to physically be there, to feel the bed move underneath you when you’re just trying to sleep, but it’s not random people, it’s your two best friends ( _rolls his eyes_ )

\---

Ashley’s brother snickers at Ashley’s fumbly sentences, and Sisky turns as red as tomato. Her parents just exchange exasperated glances.

“At least I can get laid,” she says to her brother, but as soon as she says it, she changes the subject, “but yeah- we’re gonna try to get Sisky into the wedding and the reception! But thanks for offering, Dad.”

Her dad just grumbles as he takes another sip of coffee. Ashley’s mother, however, is very intrigued. She furrows her eyebrows, and leans in a little closer to the 3 friends. “ _Sneak_ him in? Darling, I don’t want you to-“

“Ma, we’re gonna be safe!” she exclaims, her brother snickers again, “I know how to sneak into places and to pick locks, I do it all of the time when I forget my keys. It can’t be that hard to find an extra seat and to share a plate with him. And I could just— _Billiam_ could just sit on Sisky’s lap. We’re gonna be partying the whole time anyways.”

“No alcohol, though,” Bill says quickly, saving Ashley’s ass, “Gabe said he’s not going to sneak it for us.”

But he says this with his fingers crossed.

“Yeah!! We’re gonna be sober, promise! And even if we get drunk, we’ll take a cab, seriously. I don’t ~~fuck~~ with that kind of stuff,” Ashley says, and her father looks up from his mug. “Dollar in the Swear Jar.”

The camera zooms in on the ‘Swear Jar’, which is nearly full.

Sisky laughs out loud when he hears the scrape of Ashley’s chair, and Ashley grumbles in a manner much like her father’s as she fishes out a dollar from her purse to put in jar. “Looks as full as it was when I left it in Christmas.”

“That’s because no one is as, er, _silly_ , as you,” her brother says, emphasizing ‘silly’ just to let her know he meant something else, and she ruffles up his hair on her way back to her seat. “Whatever. It’s a _habit_.”

After this, the scene turns into a time lapse of everyone eating breakfast, laughing, Ashley keeping having to get up to put money in the jar (Bill does it once, and so does her Mom), people cleaning up dishes, people getting out of seats in pajamas and returning a couple of seconds later in brand new clothes and wet hair, and suitcases being transported from the living room to Sisky’s car. The time lapse ends with Ashley hugging her parents goodbye- Bill and Sisky are already in the car.

“Mom,” she says with tears in her eyes, although she quickly blinks them away, “I’ll miss you _so_ much, this was too short, but I have to go back, there’s this, this interview and Dally Long Legs said that I was already stupid to come here, but I just wanted to see you.”

She turns to her dad, and throws her arms around him as well, “Please don’t be too disappointed when you hear the album, there’s lots of cursing and mentions of drugs and I’ll send you checks upon checks to put into the Swear Jar for every time you listen to ‘Strange Love’.”

She laughs a little, wiping at the corners of her eyes as she says, “I’ll try to visit before tour, though. I don’t care if I have to walk. Actually, I take that back. But I’ll try!”

She turns back to check on Sisky and Bill, who are sitting in the passenger and driver’s seat of Sisky’s tiny car, and they’re leafing through albums to listen to. “HEY!” she screams to them, “EVANESCENSE OR NOTHING!”

And with one final hug goodbye, she flies toward the car, screaming, “CAN WE LISTEN TO _FALLEN_? PLEASE?!”

\---

ASHLEY: I’m still freaking out about the album but… I’m hoping that seeing Gabe and everyone else will lift my spirits up. Plus, I’m perfecting my plan to sneak Sisk in without Mr. Stump noticing! Worrying? Never heard of her… my best friend…

\---

( _AROUND 2PM- Gabe, Ramona, and Pete are sitting by the pool, in their bathing suits. It’s not really the time to be sitting around doing nothing, but they’ve been busy all day, so they’re taking a break.)_

“That’s so weird,” Ramona says, “your boyfriend is younger than me… I mean, at least it’s, y’know… legal...”

“Yeah…” Gabe says, awkwardly, and he shifts his eyes to the camera.

\---

GABE: Yeah, lots of comments about William’s age. ( _shakes head and says to himself_ ) This is what happens when you date a 19 year old, you did this to yourself…

\---

“When are they gonna get here?” she asks, as she wraps her towel around herself tighter, “I wanna meet them! And Halsey is his best friend… that’s crazy. I saw her when she opened for Imagine Dragons for that brief amount of time.”

“Hearing people call her Halsey, that’s what crazy to me,” Pete says, he’s been reading his book the whole time, between all of his relatives being all over him, and between the stress of  the wedding, he needed his break more than anything, but he looks over to join the conversation, “cause she’s… like… always gonna be the kid in Emo Time Trademark who wrote the most angsty poems in the world. And now I turn on the radio, and it’s the same words I remember her saying in that ratty ass classroom.”

“I mean, Ashley is just the girl that constantly cockblocks me when I’m skyping William, but yeah… I agree with you, I guess.” Gabe says, and Ramona shakes her head. “I can’t believe that though! She’s— _Halsey_! Like, Halsey is singing a song from her new album _that hasn’t even come out yet_ at your wedding!”

“Yeah,” Pete says, and then adds jokingly, “I guess that’s pretty cool. I never thought about it from the perspective of a fangirl.”

And then Ramona reaches over and punches Pete in the arm. “ _Whatever_. I’ll proudly admit I’m a fangirl for Halsey. But, like, not in a Gabe way, where I’m attracted to her because she’s 18 and that’s weird.”

Gabe buries his head in his hands, and he groans.

They continue their conversation for a little longer, stuff about the wedding of course, about how Pete’s mother is making her cover her tattoos for pictures, about the music at the reception _(“Yeah, Patrick put us in charge of music, which… I mean, that’s cool with me, I’m not sure the music will be cool with him, though.” “Dude, Patrick likes everything.” “Alright… whatever you say.”)_ , and about Ramona’s adventures of being a photographer, and so on. But then, the camera shifts angles, and suddenly, things are being told from Tyler’s camera’s POV- for a second, Josh filming Gabe, Ramona, and Pete is shown.

“I love how you guys brought 3 suitcases each, and I just have the bookbag,” Sisky says, as he rolls one of Ashley’s suitcases behind him. They’re walking through the lobby and through the pool area to get to where their room is- they’re not on the same floor as all of the teachers.

“Mine is mostly full of wigs and stuff,” Ashley says, “because I never know what I’m feeling until the day has come. Same with clothes! It’s kind of ridiculous.”

Her natural hair as of right now is shoulder length and bright pink.

“Yeah, me too, actually,” William says, “Not the wig part, my hair already looks like one.”

And William’s hair is pretty much all over the place, so neither Ashley nor Sisky disagree with him.

They stop right before the pool, just to readjust themselves, to roll their shoulders and to take a breath, because carrying luggage is the worst thing in the world, and then Ashley says, “Woah, look at that pool! I was gonna crash Gabe’s party for Patrick, but now I think I wanna swim tonight.”

“Yeah, sneaking into pools are kinda our forte, huh?” Sisky asks, and Ashley laughs nervously. “Yeah…”

\---

ASHLEY: Relatable teenager feeling: When your ex-boyfriend brings up a memory that you wrote about in your song that you’re gonna sing at your teacher’s wedding tomorrow right before your album drops?

\---

“I already washed my hair, I don’t think I should swim,” William says, and Sisky and Ashley share another glance, William’s hair is literally a fucking mess, “but you guys have fun. I need a nap, though. Are you guys ready to—wait, is that _Gabe_?”

The camera zooms in on Gabe and Ramona talking with Pete.

“ ~~Shit~~ , who is he talking to? She’s so ~~fucking~~ hot,” Ashley says shamelessly, but she’s mostly only talking to Sisky, because William is already running across the patio, despite all of the signs that say ‘ **NO RUNNING’**

The camera’s switch POV, back to Gabe, Ramona, and Pete.

“and so _I_ said—um, there’s someone running towards us, I think…” Ramona says, looking right behind Gabe’s shoulder, and when Gabe turns around to see who it is, he says “BILL?!” just as he gets up to greet him with a kiss.

It’s like a scene out of a cheesy movie, except for the part where they bump into each other because you’re not supposed to run in a place where it’s slippery, and they both lose their balance just as they kiss. Since Gabe’s the closest to the pool’s edge, William sort of gets dragged in with him, shoes and jeans and all.

Ashley covers her mouth with her hand to disguise her laughter, but it doesn’t really work, because by the time William makes it up to the surface of the water, she’s crying with it.

Gabe and William look at each other sheepishly, by now, everyone’s peeking at them, because William fell in the pool with his clothes on, and there are two cameras filming them, but William just says softly, “I missed you… _clearly_.”

And Gabe just reaches over to pull something out of William’s hair. “Yeah,” he says, and he smiles. “I missed you too.”

\---

WILLIAM: _(talking as he combs through his hair)_ It’s good to know that that moment will forever be immortalized. And by good, I don’t mean good.

ASHLEY: So, I was talking to Pete’s super sexy sister, wait, did you know that she knew me already?! She said she saw me when I opened for Imagine Dragons, she called me ‘Halsey’ in person. That’s—wow, that was so weird? I mean cool, but _weird_. But anyways, yeah, I was talking to Pete’s super sexy sister Ramona, and she said that she was gonna try to help me get Sisky in, but she said not to get my hopes up. But I still want to, I’m gonna work hard at mission Sneak-Sisky-In! And-

“Hold on,” someone says, and the camera shifts, so that Josh is filming Tyler too. Tyler sets his camera down, and he says to Ashley, who’s, still, just, by the way, doing her one-on-one, “You want to sneak Sisky into a _wedding_? _Patrick’s wedding_? That’s impossible, you’ll never do it.”

Ashley’s eyes widen, and she takes on a persona that one could relate very easily to Brendon, “Wait, are you being serious right now? Are you trying to underestimate me, you ~~fucking~~ egghead?”

The camera zooms in on Tyler’s hair- it’s not shaved anymore, and he actually doesn’t look like an egg anymore, but that’s not the point.

“I’m not trying to—I’m just _saying_ , Ramona is right, you shouldn’t get your hopes up. This is **_Patrick’s wedding_** , it’s not something you’re gonna be able to do easily.”

“So, let me get this straight. You’re saying I can’t do it?”

Tyler looks over to Josh for some reassurance, but the camera shrugs. So Tyler just looks back at Ashley and says, “Well, _yeah_ , but—“

“Thanks! Now I’m gonna try even harder!”

“Why are you—Ashley, it’s impossible! It’s a wedding! Patrick has it down to a T!” he tries to say, but Ashley crosses her arms, and says “Wanna bet on it?”

“Wanna bet on what?” Tyler asks in disbelief, “The fact that you’re not going to be able to sneak Sisky in? Yeah, sure. 10 bucks says that—“

Ashley laughs loudly for a couple of seconds, before she frowns in an instant. “Yeah, you wish. ~~Motherfucker~~ , I don’t play, so don’t play with me. If you win, I’ll write a whole paragraph in the deluxe album about how I shouldn’t overlook you and why I should appreciate you, and I’ll say that your shaved head looks better than mine, and your name will forever be my lyric booklets. But if I win, you’re gonna break the ice at the wedding, and you’re gonna perform first.”

Tyler looks shocked, but he tries to recover by scoffing, “I don’t sing, so… try again.”

And then Ashley does the laughing thing again, except this time, she stops laughing on a smirk. “That’s the thing! You forget that I spend as much time with you as you spend with me! I _know_ that you sing, I hear you with your ukulele singing love songs to J-“

“ _Okay_!” Tyler literally squeaks, “Okay, okay, fine, I agree. Only because I know that you’re going to lose, and I’m going to love seeing you admit that my shaved head looks better than yours.”

The camera shakes- it’s a no from Josh.

“So… it’s a deal?” Ashley asks, and she holds pinky finger out. “We gotta pinky swear on it, or else it’s not valid.”

Tyler sighs, and links his pinky finger with hers. “It’s a deal.”

Ashley grins as she lets go of Tyler’s finger. “Alright, awesome! Can’t wait to hear what you’re gonna prepare!”

“Haha,” Tyler laughs dryly, before he picks up his camera again. But when he looks over to Josh, he looks like he seriously regrets this decision.

  
TYLER: Yeah, no, I definitely regret this. You know why, because Ashley has this way of just getting things done. What’d she say before? ‘ ~~Motherfucker~~ , don’t play with me’? Yeah… I should have never done that.

\---

( _A couple of hours later- camera pans the party room of a fancy restaurant, before it lands on Pete and Patrick, and all of their friends and relatives. There are mountains of food packed onto plates and people are drinking out of glasses and socializing. Brendon has Pete’s cousin’s baby in his lap, and he’s deep in conversation with her about how to get a guy to marry you, as Ryan scribbles a speech on a napkin because he was chosen out of a hat to speak on the behalf of the work friends. William and Gabe are deep in conversation with Ashley, Vicky’s laughing with Patrick’s sister, and Joe and Travie are scheming with Patrick’s brother on how to make the party work. After a moment, Ryan taps Brendon’s shoulder, and Brendon, instead of tapping a fork on a glass, just covers the baby’s ears, and yells ‘RYAN HAS SOMETHING TO SAY!!!!’ before he goes back to cooing over the baby_ )

“Thanks babe,” Ryan says with a wince as he stands up, and Brendon grins up at him. “No problem, _babe_.”

He waits for a moment or two, just to let everyone settle down. “So…” he says once it has gotten quiet, “I was chosen to speak for all of the work friends, and-“

“Who the hell thought that was a good idea?!” Pete asks loudly, and everyone laughs, everyone except Brendon, who grabs a knife and points it in his direction.

“It was random!” Ryan cries exasperatedly, “Just let me—just let me finish, okay?”

He takes a deep breath, and holds the napkin up to his face so that he can read off of it. His voice is at the same monotone level it always is- “So, on the behalf of all of us, we just want to say… _finally_. It seemed like you guys were tip-toeing around each other for years, and even though this group of friends didn’t become close until last year, everyone forgets that I’m also an English teacher, and that I’ve seen Pete and I together long before the camera crew, and before everything else, and I’m not a cheesy person, unless it’s about cheese whiz, but… really, _finally_. I can remember when I first started working and you guys would always hang out in the English department together, and it was like you guys were dating already, you guys just got each other. You would finish each other’s sentences, and you guys are perfect for each other. I, uh, never really thought about marriage until Brendon came along… wait, well, until I started _dating_ him, it was, uh, kind of a rocky start, but let’s not go there…”

The camera zooms in on Brendon, who looks both flattered and offended.

“But, uh, yes, back to what I was saying- I never really thought about marriage until I myself got into a relationship, but you guys are... quote unquote relationship goals. You guys make me want to get married in future, you know, and… well, we wish you all the best in your marriage, mostly because we’re gonna be the people who are going to have to deal with the full blow of it. Chris Martin would be proud to know that you guys made out for the first time on the day of his Superbowl performance, and I know this because I met him and touched him, and therefore we are spiritually connected.”

He sits back down abruptly when no one claps, mostly because no one knew that his speech had ended on a note that wasn’t about Pete and Patrick but rather Chris Martin, but then everyone ends up clapping for him, so he sheepishly smiles and jokingly bows in his seat.

“Thanks Ryan,” Patrick says with a smile, and Pete nods, “Yeah, I underestimated you, man. I apologize.”

Ashley whips around in her seat, signature long blue hair follows, and she glares right behind the camera at Tyler.

The cameras shift focus, mostly because Tyler wanted to get away from Ashley. Joe, Travie, and Patrick’s brother are huddled together. Occasionally, Patrick looks over and eyes them suspiciously, but they’re too invested in their conversation to notice.

“So, we’re all set, right?” Patrick’s brother asks, and Joe and Travie nod.

Travie begins, “We just have to keep the music down at a semi-loud volume, but shit won’t matter, as long as Patrick doesn’t suspect anything, we’re good. And as long as-,” and Joe finishes, “there’s drinks and there’s at least _some_ music, we’ll be fine."

Joe grabs his full glass of deep red wine, and he swirls it around. “Are you ready?” he asks, with grin, and Travie looks down at his shirt and sighs, “Just do it, I can’t even look.”

“You _are_ the best man, man,” Joe says, right before he spills the red wine all over Travie’s white shirt. It dribbles down all the way to Travie’s pants, and Travie gasps loudly as he shouts, “Joe, come on!”

Patrick looks over at all of the commotion, and he just presses a hand to his forehead as he watches the two of them pretend like it was an accident. Pete just looks mildly amused at their horrible acting.

“Oh nooooooooooo,” Travie moans in despair, as Joe gets out of his seat, continuing to hit himself on the head, “I can’t eat dinner looking like this! I guess I’m going to have to go back to the room and change it!”

“I should be the designated driver, I didn't have anything to drink!” Patrick brother says,  standing up out of his seat. “So that Travie can change, and Joe can… uh…”

Silence. Why _is_ Joe going with them?

“Joe spilled the wine,” Gabe says easily, saving the day, “he doesn’t deserve to stay at such an amazing rehearsal dinner.”

“God, strike me down and kill me now,” Patrick says under his breath, and Pete buries his head in his hands to laugh.

“You’re right!” Joe says loudly, “I should, uh, go with Travie and help him pick a new shirt! Okay, let’s go!”

The three of them don’t even look at Pete and Patrick as they all but race out of the restaurant, tripping over each other, and over their shoes. The second they get outside, Joe cheers and says, “ALRIGHT! Let’s ~~fucking~~ get this party, uh, planned! No, prepared! Let’s get this party prepaaaaareedddd!”

\---

PATRICK: I’m not stupid, I know what’s happening. But they’re the stupid ones, because they know that after this, I’m going straight to—( _he pauses_ ) Oh, ~~shit~~. It’s gonna be in my room, right?

JOE: _YUP_! Patrick’s gonna love it, you _know_ he was upset when he didn’t get a party. And we’re pretty horrible friends, Patrick got himself into this situation when he decided to be friends with us.

PATRICK: I mean, I was upset that there was no party _, I guess_ , but that doesn’t mean that—the wedding is in less than 24 hours! I don’t care about a ~~fucking~~ party!

\---

( _AN HOUR LATER- It’s 10pm, and Patrick’s being escorted to his room by Gabe. The camera films them from the back_ )

“You know that I know what’s happening, right?” Patrick asks him, “Because if you didn’t- I do.”

Gabe clasps a hand on his shoulder as he continues to walk Patrick to his room. “Yeah, but… y’know, don’t be such a spoilsport about it. It’ll be over quickly, anyways. Loud music in a hotel room? Deadly combo. It’ll get shut down by midnight, swear on it.”

“Really?” Patrick asks, feeling kind of stupid that he didn’t piece those two together, and Gabe nods, “Yeah, positive. Just enjoy yourself, you’re, like, stressing out man, it’s not healthy. You need to _loosen up_ and get waaaaaaasted! Words straight from the Cobra.”

He makes the Cobra fangs with his palm and his two fingers, and Patrick takes this as the equivalent of a Christian doing a cross over their heart.

The bass from the music can be heard from a hallway down, and Patrick sends Gabe another exasperated look, although now he can definitely see there being some complaints coming their way. The door looks like it’s vibrating, and when Patrick uses his key to unlock the door, all of the lights are off, and there are, like, 6 LED Disco lights set up that project colored light all over the ceiling and walls.

The beds are covered in what looks like tarp, and Patrick is so thankful that his friends are assholes, yes, but _mindful_ assholes. Brendon and Ryan are making out on what should be Patrick’s bed, but everyone else is dancing to trap music, and drinking- all of the girl cousins and Pete and Patrick’s sisters included, so it’s not much of a bachelor party as it is ‘a party without the parents’.

By now, everyone has seen the light from the hallway seeping through the open door, and when they see that it’s Patrick, everyone cheers, and the music automatically gets changed from Lil Uzi Vert’s ‘XO TOUR Llif3’ to Prince’s ‘When Doves Cry’, and judging from Patrick’s reaction, which was to yell **_‘YESSSSS’_** , this was a good choice.

It’s a horrible environment for the cameras to film, because the second that the door closes, the only source of light is from the pink, blue, red, and orange being bounced into patterns across the walls. But they manage to get a couple of things- Patrick downing shots as soon as they’re shoved into his hands, and him getting down with his siblings as they all scream-sing “WHY DO WE SCREAM AT EACH OTHER, THIS IS WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE WHEN DOVES CRY!”, they pick up on William, sans Ashley and Sisky, sneaking in and Gabe handing him a drink, and on Vicky dancing with a bottle of water in her hands, and so on.

A couple of songs go by, the music has switched over to Michael Jackson, and by the time that light from the hallway makes its way into the room, “Beat It” is playing full force. Patrick’s definitely a little buzzed at this point- he’s not drunk, per say, but he’s definitely a lot more, in Gabe’s words, loose.

Pete walks into the room, and glances around. He mutters something to himself, but it doesn’t get picked up, and everyone cheers his name when they see that it’s him. He raises a hand to wave, and he’s about to walk right out, too many bodies in one place, but then an arm hooks around his waist, and when he looks to see who it is, it’s Patrick.

“Hey,” Patrick says, pressing his forehead to Pete’s- he's sweaty and gross, but Pete finds his hands roaming down until they rest at Patrick's waist anyways. “You look hot.”

“ _You_ look hot,” Pete jokes, and Patrick rolls his eyes playfully, “Funny”, he says, as he cups Pete’s face with his hands, and kisses him square on the mouth. Ramona yells “OKKKKK, GET IT!” in the background, even though that might be because of something else. The room is dark, and only the colors from the disco lights illuminate their faces, but between that, and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” playing from the stereo, it’s magical.

“Have a drink, or something,” Patrick says raspy, when he pulls away, “and when you’re ready, tell me when, and we’ll sneak out and do it in your room.”

“What about the midnight rule?” Pete asks, a lazy smile on his face, because there’s no way he would have sex with Patrick while he’s barely able to even remember how superstitious he is.

“I’ll just, uhhhhh, leave before. I’m sober enough! I mean, I’m _not_ , but—I wanna, we haven’t ~~fucked~~ in forever, I miss your _ass_ ,” Patrick says, and Pete laughs heartily, as he continues, “I’m so stressssssed, and the Cobra, the Cobra said not to stress!”

He does the Cobra sign. “Cross my heart!”

Pete laughs again, and presses another kiss to Patrick’s mouth. “Yeah, you’re pretty far-gone. I’m down for some heavy petting, though.”

“Good,” Patrick says, before he grabs Pete by the wrist, pulls him into the bathroom, and slams the bathroom door in the cameraman’s face.

\---

PATRICK: Hahaaaaaaaaaa… Oh ~~fuck~~ , can’t wait to be hungover and walking down the aisle

GABE: ( _kinda hammered_ ) Party was a success! Patrick and Pete made out the whole time in the bathroom, which kinda ~~fuckin~~ ’ defeats the purpose of a bachelor party, you don’t _invite_ the person you’re going to marry _to_ the party, but they had fun so… and more importantly, _I_ had fun.

WILLIAM: ( _speaking total gibberish_ ) The quadratic formula, right, no, listen, would make a… ( _gasps_ ) no, it wouldn’t! ( _starts singing_ ) X equals negative b all over… no, wait, X equals negative—uh, so Ashley and Badlands, crazy!

\---

( _AROUND MIDNIGHT- People are filtering out of Patrick’s room, saying their goodbyes as they stumble out, but the camera doesn’t focus on them- they focus on a figure with pink hair running down the hallway. It’s Ashley- her hair is braided, and she’s wearing her pajamas, and when she runs into Patrick’s rooms, there are tears on her face_ )

Travie’s picking up solo cups off of the desk and throwing them into a garbage bag as Patrick rubs at his face in an attempt to sober up a little- this doesn’t really work.

But their quietness, the both of them half-assing cleaning the remnants of the bachelor, is quickly broken by Ashley Frangipane running into the room.

“Patrick!!!!” she sobs, full-fledged sobbing, and Patrick jerks back with surprise- at Ashley in general, and at Ashley in his room crying at midnight. “Ashley, what the hell, what’s wrong, what-“

“PATRICK!!!!” she screams, “MR. STUMP, I have a problem!!!”

“WHAT?!” Patrick yells back, officially freaked out, and Travie stares at them from his spot, frozen with shock.

“ ** _I HAVE A REALLY BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!!!!”_** she continues to sob, and her chest heaves when she says, “BUT YOU’RE GONNA GET MAD AT ME!”

“Ashley, what the ~~fuck~~ is it?!” Patrick asks, frantic, and Ashley grabs him by the shirt collar and shakes him as she says, rushed, with tears streaming down her face, “SISKY! Patrick, I thought I put plus one on my invitation, but I didn’t BUT HE’S HERE AND I CAN’T TELL HIM TO GO BACK HOME, PLEASE MR. STUMP,  I’LL FIND A WAY TO GET A SEAT FOR HIM AND WE’LL SHARE A PLATE AND EVERYTHING BUT PLEASE DON’T GET MAD AT ME, I’M GONNA HAVE A ~~FUCKING~~ PANIC ATTACK!!!” she screams at him wildly, and Travie looks into the camera with a facial expression that reads ‘ _what kind of drugs is she on’_

“Ashley, _Ashley_ , calm _down_ ,” he says, he’s taking deep breaths, because she’s going to give him a heartattack, and he unhooks Ashley’s fingers from his shirt. “Sisky can-“ he takes a deep breath, partly due to the fact that he’s screwing up his plans, and partly because his world is still somewhat spinning, “Sisky can come, I know you’re stealthy and can find a chair but do not take one from another table, it’ll mess up the plans, and—jeez, Ashley, stop crying, _please_.”

She sniffles, hiccupping as she says softly “Okay… okay, thank you Mr. Stump, I’m so sorry, I won’t let you down! Okay, bye!”

She skips out of the room quickly, Patrick and Travie exchange glances that read ‘what the hell just happened’, and when she’s outside, after the door to the room has closed, she looks right behind the camera, and wipes her tears with her middle fingers. She calms down in an instant, the whole thing was just her acting, and she laughs as she says, “So, uh, have fun choosing a song to sing tomorrow at the wedding? May I make a suggestion? How about, um… ~~MOTHERFUCKER~~ DON’T PLAY WITH MEEEEEEEEEE!”

She gives Tyler the middle finger again, she waves goodnight to Josh, and then she skips back down the hall. Josh turns the camera, so that Tyler, standing frozen, still shocked at the world wind of events, is the focus, and Josh says to him, “Uh… I think Ashley just…”

“Yeah…” Tyler says, before he brings his hand to his forehead. “ ~~Fuck~~ ,” he says miserably, “ _I should have never done that.”_

There’s a clock in the hallway that chimes when the hands reach ‘12’, and it rings just as Ashley’s room door shuts.

It’s midnight on Saturday morning, and it’s the day of the wedding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YEAH DONT EVEN TRY CANT FUCK WITH MY VIBE DOUBLE CUPPIN' IN MY RIDE MOTHERFUCKER DONT PLAY WIT ME 
> 
> eccentric!ashley in two years: yeah my song "dont play" was inspired by my cameraman tyler and how he tried playing games with me (but tbh i would NEVER cross halsey she would fuck my shit up so bad lmao)
> 
> anyways- I LOVE HFK SO MUCH!!! my faves are walls could talk (OHHHHHH HEY! OHHHHH NO MORE!! OHHHHH YOU AINT MY BABY NO MOOOOREEE) and alone and heaven in hiding (I CAN PUT ON A SHOWWWW I CAN PUT ON A SHOWWW DONT YOU SEE WHAT YOU'RE FINDING THIS IS HEAVEN IN HIDING) and i love the transition between good mourning and lie :') im so proud of her?!?! here i am writing her before badlands and she released her NEW ALBUM IRL?!!??!?! goddd i love her so much i truly would lay my life down for ashley frangipane 
> 
> anyways- sorry this was such a shit beginning. i PROMISE the next part will be out soon, give me a week and i promise it'll be out. i just wanted to post this early because i wanted to fangirl about HFK and i've been hyping this wedding for so damn long it felt kinda stupid to wait even longer to post all at once cause its gonna be super long and who knows when i would have finished it? :/ idk plus comments motivate me so there's that too haha. and sorry there's not a lot of peterick in this chapter cause,,, its gonna be mostly them next chapter!!! im so PUMPED!!!!


	2. Wedding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LMAO even though this chapter is super long and it kinda drags on a little just cause i wanted to squeeze everything in, it was straight up jokes for me to write, so i hope you guys like it!!!

( _9AM- **7** **hours until Pete and Patrick walk down the aisle** \- the camera pans Patrick and Travie’s hotel room- Patrick’s on the bed, downing some Advil, and Travie and Brendon, are in the room with him. Oh, and Ryan’s there too, he’s lying on his back, and scrolling through his phone. ‘Hurts like Heaven’ serves as background music_)

“Damn, Patrick,” Brendon says, shaking his head, “you look like death. No offense or anything.”

Brendon’s not wrong- Patrick looks pretty bad. He’s cradling his head in his hands, and his hair sticks up from all sides. And when he looks up, his face is covered in stubble, and his eyes are bloodshot and narrowed. “Shut. The. ~~Fuck~~. Up,” Patrick croaks, “Why are you here?! Shouldn’t you and Ryan be having sex in your room to Coldplay or something? Not bothering me, maybe?”

“We were sent here by Ramona,” Brendon says, as he jumps into bed, next to Patrick, “she said that the breakfast bar is closing soon, and she’s set a strict schedule so that you and Pete don’t run into each other, so your time slot starts… oh… ~~shit~~!” Brendon says, blinking as he brings the paper closer to his face. “Started… an hour ago, and ended a minute ago…”

Patrick glares at him.

“Oops?” Brendon winces. “We have muffins, though! Ryan went downstairs earlier! And… maybe I can drive you to McDonalds? Or—Ryan, where are the muffins?”

The camera zooms in on Ryan, who’s mouthing the lyrics to ‘Charlie Brown’ as it plays, not listening to a word Brendon’s saying.

“Ryan!” Brendon repeats louder, and that’s when Ryan snaps out of his Coldplay haze. “Huh?”

“The muffins,” Brendon says impatiently, “where did you put them?”

Ryan looks between Brendon and Patrick, and he says sheepishly, “Um… my tum-tum? Sorry. I was hungry.”

Travie looks into the camera and mouths _'tum-tum?_ '

And Patrick opens his mouth to croak some more, but Travie stops him by saying, “Okay _,_   _this is fine_ , I’ll just drive Patrick to get something from the diner. We have, like, 5 whole hours till we have to get to the garden, we’re on time. You down, Trix?”

But Patrick doesn’t look down to do anything. He just woke up, his face is oily and the glasses on his face are on lopsided. He shakes his head, and curls in closer to himself underneath the covers. “I’ll just walk to Starbucks or something. I need to get myself together,” he says, but he’s not doing anything to get himself together.

So, Brendon does what Brendon does best- be annoying.

“Okay,” Brendon says, “you wanna do this the hard way? GET THE ~~FUCK~~ UPPPPPPPPPPPP!”

Ryan puts his music up louder, and rolls over on his side so one ear is pressed against the floor. He puts the speakers up to his other ear, and effectively blocks out, “PATRICK GET UPPPPPPPPPPPPP! YOU’RE GETTING MAAAAARRRIEEED!”

He rips the covers off the bed, they fall on top of Ryan, and Travie sips on his coffee and just watches as Brendon kicks his shoes off, and starts jumping on the bare bed. “WAKE! UP! WAKE! UP!” he chants as he continues to jump, and Patrick tries to cover his ears, he’s wearing pajama pants so he’s not flashing the cameras or anything, but once Brendon leans down and starts shaking his shoulder as he says, “OH YEAH WAKE UP YEAH”, that’s pretty much the end.

Patrick shoves Brendon off of him and he groans something along the lines of “I want to ~~fucking~~  murder you, you ~~fucking~~  gremlin", as he stumbles to the bathroom. The door slams shut, and Brendon and Travie shrug at each other. Ryan’s still underneath the covers on the floor- the song ‘Magic’ seeps through.

The scene shifts in a second- another camera, Tyler’s, is filming Pete, Gabe, and Ramona in front of the hotel cafeteria. Pete’s shoulders are hunched together the way that they always are when he’s under a lot of pressure.

“Guys, I swear, I’ll be fine,” Pete says, “I just need some coffee and a cigarette or something, I’ll walk by myself. I’m not gonna walk into traffic or anything, I don’t need a _supervisor_.”

Ramona and Gabe just give each other skeptical looks.

“What?!” Pete snaps at them, “What?!”

“Nothing,” Gabe says quickly, “just go take your walk or-“

“Thanks for giving me permission, bye!” Pete exclaims sarcastically, before he angrily stomps off in the other direction, towards the lobby doors. 

The scene shifts again- Patrick’s putting on his shoes in the hotel room. All he did was brush his teeth, wash his face, and comb through his hair, because he’s still in his pajamas, and the stubble on his face looks scratchy.

“Patrick, are you sure-“ Brendon begins to say, before Patrick throws his hands up, “Leave me the ~~fuck~~ alone! I’ll be back in an hour! Go bother someone else!”

\---

PATRICK and PETE, in two different frames, side by side: What the ~~fuck~~ is wrong getting a cup of coffee?!

\---

( _Cameras follow Patrick on his journey to Starbucks- he’s silent as he walks to the coffee shop, he has his headphones on, and he looks pissed beyond belief. It’s hard to believe that this is the same person who was so giggly the night before with Pete, but that’s what a bad hangover will do to a person. He reaches the coffee shop, and he’s about to pull the door, but someone, at the same time, opens it from the other end, bumps into Patrick, and freezing cold coffee sloshes all over Patrick’s clothes)_

“What the ~~fuck~~!” Patrick shouts as the iced coffee immediately begins to seep into his shirt, “are you ~~fucking~~ kid—“

And then he pauses when he looks into the most familiar brown eyes on the planet.

They stand facing each other, totally frozen in their spots. Pete’s eyes are still wide, and the coffee from Pete’s cup begins to drip onto the pavement from Patrick’s clothes.

“You have got to be ~~fucking~~ kidding me.” Patrick says quietly, before he closes his eyes and takes the deepest sigh in the history of sighs. “Oh God, I _knew_ this was gonna happen. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I-“

“Patrick,” Pete tries to say, “it’s not that big of a deal, it’s-“

But Patrick isn’t having any of it. Between his worst fear coming true, and Brendon pissing him off, and the huge headache, and the fact that he’s getting married today, he has so many things to worry about, like Ashley bringing a whole other person, everything just adds up. And before he even knows it, he begins to cry.

“ ~~FUCK~~ ,” he shouts, as he brings his hands to his face, “ ~~FUCK~~!”

Pete tosses the coffee in the garbage as soon as he sees the tears, and he immediately tries to pull Patrick’s hands away from his face, “Patrick,” he pleads, “baby, come on, it’s gonna be okay, it’s-“

Patrick shakes his head, pushing Pete away, “ _No_ , no, it’s—“ he shakes his head again, he wipes at his face with the back of his hands, and Pete grabs them before he has the chance to cover his face again. “Yes,” Pete insists, “yes, we’re gonna be fine.”

“Pete, get the ~~fuck~~ off me,” Patrick says through a hiccup, Pete lets go his hands, Patrick’s face is so red, “I just, I just, I need, I-“

He sits down right there in front of Starbucks and he goes back to sobbing into his hands as he continues to ramble, “I’m so stressed out right now, and Brendon, and he’s so _annoying_ , and now everything is gonna go wrong, and, and-“

Pete rubs Patrick’s back as he continues to cry, there’s no point in interrupting it if it’s just Patrick releasing his emotions, “I hate how no one listens to me, I hate, I _hate_ how I said no party, and no one ~~fucking~~ takes me seriously, it’s not even our wedding anymore, it’s- oh ~~fuck~~ , Pete,” he cries harder, people coming in and out of the shop give them weird looks, and he buries his head in Pete’s shoulder. The sticky coffee on his shirt transfers to Pete’s clothes, the tears on Patrick’s face seep through the fabric.

“Are you done?” Pete asks softly, once the crying has finally, finally ceased, his hands are still wrapped around Patrick, but when Patrick sniffles, he lets go so that they can look at each other. And Patrick’s whole face is red and wet with tears, so he ducks his head, he doesn’t want Pete seeing him looking like that, but Pete gently pushes his face up, “Hey, no, look at me. You’ve seen me at my ~~fucking~~ worst, like, puking all over your bathroom and sobbing like a ~~fucking~~ baby until I’ve passed out, I can handle some tears.”

It sounds harsh, but he says it softly. So, Patrick wipes at his face once more before he lets himself look at Pete. “Sorry,” Patrick says, “I’m being  ~~fuckin'~~  stupid. It’s supposed to be a happy day, and I’m _crying_.”

“You’re not being stupid,” Pete says, “not at all. It’s a really big day.”

“I know,” Patrick says, “and we just ~~fucked~~ it up by walking into each other. What’s next- they send us funeral flowers instead of wedding ones?!”

Pete winces, like he wishes he could tell Patrick to maybe not jinx it.

“I know, I know, but we—I mean, it happened, we just have to… move on. We love each other, us seeing each other before the ceremony isn’t going to change that.”

Patrick nods, but it’s not convincing, “Yeah… yeah, I know, but-“

“And if anything does happen, we’ll get through it together,” he says, “even if the whole thing gets cancelled-“ Patrick flinches “-or even if they do send us funeral flowers, I’ll still love you. That’s, like, not gonna change because of some stupid flowers.”

Patrick sighs again, like he’s processing what Pete’s saying, and he says quietly, after a moment. “You smell like cigarettes.”

Judging from Pete’s face, a smile that breaks out and stretches his face, this is a good response. “Yeah, I bought a pack. You’re not the only one who’s ~~stressed~~ as fuck. You want?”

And Patrick shakes his head. “I just want some coffee.”

He pauses, before he says through another sniffle, “And I love you too. And the fact that you still want to marry me when I act like this.”

Pete presses a kiss to Patrick’s forehead before he says, through a laugh, “This is nothing compared to hell week, baby.”

\---

PETE: ( _sipping iced coffee through a straw from another cup of coffee_ ) It’s true- that was nothing compared to the meltdowns that occur during the last week of the musical. It’s okay, though. I want to forever deal with Patrick’s meltdowns. I mean, I would prefer that they _wouldn’t_ happen, but—you know what I mean!

PATRICK: ( _glasses are fogged up from his dark roast hot coffee_ ) So… that was… a moment… that happened…

\---

( _10AM- **6**   **hours before Pete and Patrick walk down the aisle** \- Brendon and Ryan are sitting in the hotel lobby, at the grand piano. They don’t have permission to do this, Ryan keeps looking over his shoulder, but Brendon is amazing at playing, so the guests seem to like it- even if it’s just the same song over and over: Fuck ‘Him’ Gently)_

“Yoooooouuuu don’t always haaaave to [~~fuuuuck~~ him haaaaard,](https://youtu.be/xbVwDISj7GM)” Brendon sings, bumping his shoulders with Ryan playfully as he improvises over his lines hardcore. Like, to the point where the song doesn’t even sound like the song, and just sounds like Brendon’s just showing off (which was the entire point to begin with)

And the next line, ‘in fact sometimes it’s not right to do’, is Ryan’s. But, when Brendon stops singing, when it’s Ryan’s turn, he just clenches his fists and sings under his breath, “In fact some—“

Brendon stops playing abruptly, and he groans, “Ryan, no. You have to sing it like you mean it! Patrick’s gonna get pissed if we give him a crappy performance, and we can’t ruin his day!”

He suddenly laughs at his sentence, because the whole point of the song is to get revenge, and he wipes away at fake tears as he says, “Aaah, who am I kidding? But anyways-“

He starts playing the piano introduction to ‘Clocks’ by Coldplay, Ryan glares at him a little, and when it gets up to the verses, just like Brendon knew, Ryan can’t help but belt out “LIGHTS GO OUT AND I CAN’T BE SAVED, TIDES THAT I TRIED TO SWIM AGAINST, HAVE BROUGHT-“

“See?!” Brendon shouts, throwing his hands up in frustration, but Ryan puts them back down onto the keys, a signal that he wants Brendon to play the rest of the song. “I want you to sing like that,” he says, as he obliges by Ryan’s wishes and continues to play, “because we’ll have microphones, yeah, but—I’m going to sound like a hippo, a very talented and beautiful hippo, and you’re just gonna sound like the bird that sits on my back, and we’re partners, and-“

“Okay, but if you’re going to use that analogy, the hippo and the bird are of mutual help to each other, because-“

“-and so, we’re gonna try this again. It’s gonna be _fun_. I love torturing Patrick!” Brendon laughs again, and he moves his fingers back down to start ‘Fuck ‘Him’ Gently’ again, but Ryan pouts. “Wait, no, finish the song first, I like when you play it.”

They sit in (mostly) silence as Brendon continues to play ‘Clocks’, Ryan hums under his breath, and at one point, Brendon and Ryan sing together at a level that seems optimal for ‘Fuck ‘Him’ Gently’, _“Home, home, where I wanted to go,”_

And they were left in peace to jam to Coldplay in the crowded lobby for a while, Brendon improvises on the piece again, and Ryan adds in with little snippets of ‘Chrisssss Maaaaartin, you aaaaare, you aaaaare, and nooooothing else compaaaaaaresssssss’, until the camera zooms in on a figure running their way. Face piercings, dark eye makeup, and an owl tattoo on their arm- it’s a Wentz.

“Brendon!” Ramona screams at them, and she literally runs into them, toppling over Ryan and banging on the keys harshly when she loses her footing and almost falls straight to the ground. “ _We have a problem_.”

Brendon perks up, and he leans across Ryan, looking concerned. “What happened?”

She takes a deep breath, like she’s trying to compose herself. “Okay,” she exhales, “the person who was supposed to marry Pete and Patrick, the, the officiant, had this whole big family emergency, and long story short-“ she reaches up and pulls on her hair in distress, “we have no one to ordain the wedding! I called and checked in phone books, and-“

“Okay,” Brendon says, sliding off his side of the piano bench, “I have a white mother, I know how to be a total bitch over the phone and get ~~shit~~ done. I’m gonna go check online, maybe we all can go to the—“

He pauses, and shakes his head, his eyebrows are furrowed like he’s deep in thought, “Okay, actually, you come with me,” Brendon says to Ramona, and then he looks down at Ryan and says firmly, “and you, stay put, and _learn the ~~fucking~~ song!”_

And with that, Ramona and Brendon run off to find Travie. After Brendon leaves, Ryan looks around the lobby, bored out of his mind. And it’s too much of a journey to go back to the room, so he just does exactly what Brendon told him not to do. With his right hand, he can only play with one hand, he begins to play ‘Fix You’.

“When you try your best but you don’t succeeeeeeeeeeed…”

\---

BRENDON: See, I like Ramona and everything, and no shade, but… this wouldn’t have happened if they made me maid of honor. NO SHADE. Seriously, no shade!!! _(crosses his arms_ ) Direct sunlight, honestly!

PATRICK: ( _sipping his coffee and looking at the camera weirdly_ ) …What? What happened? You only do this when something happened

\---

( _10:30AM- **5**   **and half hours until Pete and Patrick walk down the aisle** \- Pete and Patrick walk into the hotel together, and Ryan, who’s still playing Coldplay, gives them a double take, because he can’t believe that they’re together before the ceremony, and then he ducks his head so that they don’t come up to him. But Patrick knows only one person who still supports a bowl cut and worships Coldplay, so they make their way over)_

“Were you hiding from us?” Patrick asks, folding his arms over the dried coffee stain on his shirt. “Everyone can see your bowl cut from a mile away, you didn’t do a very good job.”

Patrick shouldn’t really be talking, though. Whenever he’s trying to hide from someone, his fedora always gives it away.

Ryan rolls his eyes as he says, “Whatever. What’re you two—“ he motions at the two of standing so close together, standing next to each other to begin with, but then his gaze shifts upwards, at the stain on Patrick’s shirt, and his eyes widen. “Wow…never pegged you guys as the watersports types.”

“...what?" Patrick asks, before he looks down at where Ryan's looking, and then he groans, "it’s _coffee_ , jeez, you’re disgusting.”

Ryan just shrugs. “You never know. I would let Chris Martin pee on me, so—“

“Okay, can we stop talking about me peeing on Patrick?” Pete interjects suddenly, with a huge blush on his face.

\---

PETE: I don't... have a piss kink... that's so ridiculous, I would never be into that... not in a million years. No, a _billion_ years! I would never be into pinning someone underneath me, marking them as mine, getting them all wet with... _I don't have a piss kink!_

\---

“Thanks," he says, he tries sound sarcastic, but it doesn't really work because his face is still flushed red, when Ryan pretends to zip his mouth and throw away the key, "Anyways… where’s the garden gnome? I never see one of you without the other."

“Yeah, look who’s ~~fucking~~ talking,” Ryan says under his breath, before he says at a normal level, “ _Brendon_ is with Ramona, trying to find that new officiant or whatever the ~~fuck~~. Wasn’t really listening, to be honest…”

Patrick gives the camera a glance, before he turns back to Ryan and says in a surprisingly steady voice, like he’s in shock, “Repeat what you just said.”

Pete takes his phone out his pocket, and his eyes widen at all of the panicked text messages he was ignoring while he was sitting with Patrick.

“Um…” Ryan says, “Brendon and Ramona are searching for someone to ordain the wedding? Did you—wait, you didn’t know? Ramona texted-“

Pete hands his phone to Patrick wordlessly, before he sits next to Ryan on the piano bench and runs his fingers through his hair and pulls on it, just like what Ramona did.

“So this…” Patrick trails off, and Pete nods. “Uh huh.”

“So we…” Patrick trails off again, and Pete nods again. “Yeah.”

“And there’s no…” Patrick trails off once more, and Pete nods once more. “Nope.”

Ryan looks between the two of them, and he says hesitantly, like he’s trying to convince himself as well, “We still have 5 hours, right? 3 till we have to get there. Brendon’s working on it. And you know I usually don’t put my faith in him, but he’s… he’ll find a way.”

Patrick gives Pete an empty look. “I did it. It was the superstition.”

“It’s not. It’s—“ he pauses, trying to come up with the right words to say, but he can’t think of any of them. He’s just as worried as Patrick is, it’s written all in his posture, he’s back to hunching his shoulders, and he bounces his leg up and down. “We’ll be fine. Ryan’s right, Brendon can do it. It’s _Brendon_.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t- that doesn’t help me,” Patrick stresses, “I need a drink or something, like a strong shot, like a…” and then his eyes light up like a lightbulb just went off in his head. “Joe. Did he bring the brownies that he swore he was never going to make?”

Ryan nods. “Uh, yeah, I think he gave them to Travie.”

“Okay,” Patrick says, before he grabs Pete and kisses him hard. Ryan gags, they’re kissing way too close from him, and Pete’s fingers grip at _his_ thighs for something to hold onto. He pries his Pete’s fingers off, just as their kiss deepens, and when they pull away, Patrick says “I’m gonna go find him, and we can’t afford any more bad luck, so I’ll see you on the aisle… hopefully.”

And he gets up to walk away, so Pete calls after him, "Love you!"

“Yeah, love you too.” Patrick replies, before he goes flying to his room, leaving Pete and Ryan alone.

“Hey,” Ryan says, just to say something, and Pete sighs. “Hi.”

“So, how did you convince Patrick to let you—“ “Ryan, _stop_.”

\---

PATRICK: I feel like Joe circa 2016 right now, but I need something to mellow me the ~~fuck~~ out before I have another breakdown. Like… Ashley’s meltdown yesterday? Yeah… that’s how I feel inside. Like, why the hell is this ~~shit~~ happening to _me_?

RAMONA: No progress. Apparently a lot people are getting married this weekend, and not even Brendon’s perfect bitchy ‘Mom’ voice is getting us anywhere. I’m about two seconds away from googling ‘How much does it cost to ordain yourself’

\---

( _11AM- **5**   **hours until Pete and Patrick walk down the aisle** \- Patrick, who’s face is red again from panic crying, knocks loudly on Joe and Vicky’s hotel room. He’s holding the container of ‘Not-Weed’ brownies, and when Joe answers the door, he’s only wearing a robe_.)

“Oh, hey Patrick,” Joe says, giving Patrick an odd look, because he looks as red as a lobster, but then he notices the container in Patrick’s hands, and he says as he pulls it out of Patrick’s hands, “oh, heyyyyyy, Patrick, buddy, let’s not eat those. They’re _not weed_ , but… uh… just come in?”

He steps aside, and let’s Patrick come into the room, but not before he turns back and says in the direction of the beds. “Tori, Patrick’s here.”

“Okay, don’t call me Tori.” Vicky calls back, and when Patrick makes his way to the bed, Vicky’s lying in bed, underneath the covers. “I just want to sleep all day,” she says to Patrick, “We haven’t even gone out to eat or anything. And hey, what’s on your shirt?”

“Long story,” Patrick waves her off, and turns back to Joe, who climbs onto the bed with them. “But, no, listen, I _want_ the weed brownies. I just don’t know the… the… like, I’m about to ~~fucking~~ kill someone, I just need something strong enough to get me to calm down, because I’m not taking Pete’s pills, and I don’t wanna get piss drunk before the wedding, you know, but I don’t know the… dosage? Like, do I eat the whole thing, or is that not enough, or-”

“ _No_ , you can’t eat the whole thing, you’ll be tripping for days, my ~~shit~~ is strong.” Joe says, as he opens the container. “You’ve never taken edibles before? Seriously? You don’t know your own limitations? I could have sworn I’ve seen you high as hell before.”

“The weed bagels,” Patrick rolls his eyes, and Joe sighs happily, just at the memory. “Oh, yes. The weed bagels.”

“This is Patrick we’re talking about,” Vicky says to Joe, about the edibles comment, “he’s a nerd, he doesn’t take drugs.”

“I know _alcohol_ , I—can you just do it for me?!” Patrick asks impatiently, and he clenches his fists and throws his head back as he lets out a loud groan. “I need to lie down and ~~fuckin~~ ’ roll over. Or something. Did you hear?”

“About the ordaining story? Yeah.” Joe says, as he takes out a brownie from the container (he also brings the container to his nose and he shudders, ‘It smells so good’ he says sadly) and breaks it into half, before he breaks that half, and breaks _that_ half in half. He hands Patrick the remaining 1/8 th of the brownie. “I can’t blame you, I’d have to smoke a huge blunt if this ~~shit~~ happened on my wedding day,” Joe says, putting the other parts of the brownie back in the container.

“Yeah,” Patrick says, and he’s about to eat what little bit of the brownie Joe gave him, but then Vicky says, “Wait, hold on a second! Doesn’t Gabe have a license to marry?”

There’s a beat.

Patrick raises his eyebrows. “ _What_? Are you sure?”

[ _FLASHBACK: PATRICK’S PARTY- Gabe’s giggling wildly as Vicky dances with him to ‘Ascension’ by Gorillaz. In the background- ‘_ the sky’s falling, baby, drop that ass ‘fore it crash’ _. There’s a cup of beer in Gabe’s hands, and water in Vicky’s. “And you know, when I was drunk one time, I **literally** became ordained! It’s a ~~fuckin~~ ’ fact, bro! ~~Fuck~~ that old dude, I should marry Pete-The-Treat and Trixie Cup!” _

_He laughs again, pauses, he burps, and then he laughs again. “Or I could just marry myself. Oh— ~~shit~~! Gabe Saporta-Saporta. Saporta-Squared.”]_

Vicky reaches over to grab her phone as she says, “Yeah, give me a moment. Gabe said something last night at the party, he was kinda drunk,  but I wasn’t, and—wait, I’m calling him right now.”

She puts the call on speakerphone, and Patrick puts the 1/8th of the brownie back in the container as he leans in closer to the phone. _This_ , he has to hear. It rings a couple of times, and right when Vicky’s about to cancel the call, there’s a muffled “Yaaaa?” from the other side.

“Hey, where are you?” Vicky asks, “We kinda need you right now, Patrick’s in the room. Are you busy?”

“Uh…” Gabe says, “about to get my ~~dick sucked~~...”

Patrick makes a face- that will never get old, the whole William and Gabe hooking up since before William’s senior year. Every reminder brings him back to that moment when he found them in the closet making out. 

There’s a noise on the other line, like someone is getting hit, and William shrieks, “Gabe, what the ~~_fuck_~~! Not anymore! Who are you talking to, please don’t tell me it’s-“

“It’s Vic, Joe, and Patrick.” Vicky says, and William makes another frustrated sound. “Sorry Mr. Stump,” he says into the phone, before Gabe comes back onto the line. “Alright, _nevermind then_. Whatcha guys need?”

“Did you check the chat? It’s—dude, just get over here, we have to talk to you,” she says, and Patrick brings his hand to his mouth, to start biting at his nails. They have no hope, Gabe is a rambler when he’s drunk, it probably wasn’t even true. He can’t see Gabe ordaining a wedding, that’s just not an image he can imagine.

“Nah… nahhh, I’ve been… _occupied_. And-“ there’s some rustling on the other line, a whiny voice that says ‘No, don’t kiss me, I’m pissed’, and the sound of a door clicking shut. “I’ll be there in 5 seconds.”

The door to the room is still open because Joe never shut it, so in 5 seconds, Gabe strolls into the room with the sleepiest expression on his face. He’s wearing a ratty pair of boxers and he’s still shirtless, and he crawls into the crowded bed, there are 4 of them now, and he buries his head in Vicky’s shoulder. “Wha happen?” he asks, “Another party?”

He turns to look at Patrick, and he jerks back a little as he takes in Patrick’s face. “Jesus ~~shit~~ , what happened to you? You look like you’ve been to hell and back.”

“Just ask him before I combust,” Patrick says through a sigh, and he runs his hands over his face, like he could wipe away all of the stubble and redness and blotchiness.

“What?” Gabe asks, and Vicky says, “Last night—you said that you wanted to marry Pete and Patrick and that you had the license to marry them? Like, ordain the ceremony?”

Gabe shrugs like it’s nothing, like he’s not singlehandedly about to save the wedding. “Oh. Yeah. Did it when I was drunk online at, like, 2 in the morning. Like a temporary officiant, but not, because I’m year round and ~~shit~~. All 50 states, the whole deal. Totally legal.”

Patrick blinks. “But… but _how_?!”

“Through my Cobra religion, man,” Gabe says, “It’s totally legit, swear on my life.”

He does the cobra sign, the two fingers and the palm, and Joe looks into the camera and glances back at the full container with a confused expression, like he’s wondering if he just took a brownie and he’s now tripping.

“Are you—I mean, can you elaborate?!” Patrick exclaims, and Gabe rolls his eyes as he continues on with the story. “It’s kinda complicated, but yeah, man. I have an I.D and everything! Technically, the marriage is confirmed through the Cobra Bless, the Snake Church, but us cobras are recognized in the law, and to get married by a Cobra, you don’t have to be a Cobra, you just have to be a good AND L.I.T person.”

Patrick and Vicky look so confused, so Gabe keeps going. “Oh, and when I marry you guys, I just have to hiss on you, and that’s what makes it official.”

No one laughs at Gabe’s (apparent) joke, everyone is still trying to wrap their minds around the fact that Gabe belongs to a Snake Church, so he sighs. “Okay, I was just kidding about hissing. But the rest—solid! Why? You want me to marry you guys? But what happened to the other guy? The old guy?”

“Plans changed, everything’s in the chat,” Patrick says, before he grabs Gabe, and hugs him tightly. “But oh God, thank you so much Gabe, you have _no idea_ … Okay, do you need anything? A snake present? Slytherin robes? What do we—“

“All I need is myself and a beer. Cause the Cobra mantra is to get wasted,” he says, before he sits back onto the bed and grins. “Alright, this is ~~fuckin~~ ’ awesome! Damn, for people who planned this wedding, your day has kinda taken many different turns.”

And, well. Patrick can’t really disagree.

\---

VICTORIA: So, I guess being sober had its perks, cause I just saved the ~~motherfuckin~~ ’ Peterick wedding. 

GABE: I can’t believe it! I’m gonna be the officiant to my best friends’s, plural, wedding! The only thing that would make this better would be if Bill were ~~sucking my dick.~~ But whatever, we’re good.

PETE: …so, wait, is he gonna hiss on us? I mean, I’d do anything for Ricky and the whole spiel but… he’s gonna _hiss_ on us?

BRENDON: I don’t know how, but this was my doing. Like, _I_ helped somehow. Uh… okay, if I never left Ryan, he wouldn’t have stressed Patrick out and Patrick would have never gone to Joe for weed brownie advice, and Vicky wouldn’t have overheard, and she wouldn’t have remembered what Gabe said yesterday night! Uhhhhh, I’m a _genius_. What would they do without me?

\---

_(1PM- **3**   **hours until Pete and Patrick walk down the aisle** \- Patrick took a shower, and his face is finally back to looking normal- he’s clean shaven, and the redness from crying is gone. His siblings and cousins and relatives are all in the room with him, just fussing about the outfit and asking questions about Gabe, and the whole works. There’s an hour until they have to get to the gardens. Patrick’s outfit is on a hanger, and he’s hanging out on the bed in his sweats)_

“And you have your vows, right?” Patrick’s sister asks, as Patrick nods, rolling over on the bed and picking up a piece of paper from the bedside table. “Yup. Didn’t even try to memorize it, I _need_ to stick to it or else I’m gonna go on another rampage and cry alone. I’m so ~~fuckin~~ ’ lovesick.”

She grins at him, and tussles his hair a little. “It’s cute. And Pete’s a good guy, if you were lovesick over Ryan, that’d be a different story.”

Patrick just kinda blinks at her and a silent ‘ _You are horrible for making me visualize that’_ is shared between them.

The scene changes- Vicky, Brendon, Ryan, and Joe all huddled around the door of Pete’s hotel room, and Vicky knocks the door. They’re all in sweats (besides Brendon, who literally always dresses up), but they _look_ fancy. Vicky’s hair is braided so it looks like a crown, and her bangs are pinned back. Ryan’s hair is curled too, so that his bowl cut doesn’t look gross- there’s a burn on his forehead, a telling sign that Brendon did it for him)

“Pete?!” Brendon yells, pushing Vicky aside to bang on the door. “We come bearing gifts! Open the door!”

They are- Brendon and Vicky are carrying bags with them.

The door swings open, and Pete appears before them, with half of his hair straightened and wearing Nightmare Before Christmas pajama bottoms and an undershirt. “Uh… come in, I guess. I’m almost done getting ready?” he says, stepping aside and letting everyone huddle in. Gabe’s on his bed, eating some chips as he flips through the channels- he’s all dressed and ready to go.

“Wait, what is this? We were supposed to get gifts?” he asks. “ ~~Shit~~. Whatever, Willliam got you a toaster and, uh, I’m ~~fucking~~ officiating the wedding!”

“Yeah, no one asked,” Brendon says to Gabe, and Gabe makes a sour face at him when he turns around. “We didn’t know what we wanted to get for you initially, but then we remembered- you’re the bride, and-“

Pete glares into the camera before he says through gritted teeth, “Okay, not the bride, but continue.”

 _“Because you’re the bride_ , we decided to go traditional on your ass,” he says, before he clasps his hands together and grins at the 3 other friends. “Alright! Let’s get this started, Josh, you’re first.”

Gabe and Pete looked surprised to hear this, and even more so when Josh says “Oh— ~~shit~~ , yeah, just hold this for me? Don’t touch any of the buttons.” and hands Brendon his camera. It’s initially facing Brendon, but then he turns it around so that he gets Josh and Pete in the frame. Mostly, anyways- the focus is on Ryan, and Brendon continually zooms in and out of Ryan’s face throughout most of Josh and Pete’s interaction.

Still- Josh, with his wild pink hair and his GROUPLOVE hoodie, reaches into the hoodie pocket, and hands Pete a flash drive.

“Something old,” Josh says, and Pete looks at it curiously. “Is it porn? Like, old porn?” Pete asks, his interest has suddenly peaked, and Josh says, slowly, “Uh… no… Tyler and I edit a bunch of stuff out and everything we don’t use gets put into folders based on each person, just in case the board wants more footage of someone and just— _long story short_ , this is from Ty and I, and it’s just a whole bunch of 2016 old stuff of you and Patrick, and it kinda documents the other… unseen? Yeah, _unseen_ side of you guys getting together. I dunno. We just wanted to do something nice considering the fact that we were constantly down your throats last year, and all of the filming was probably annoying… but… uh… I mean, now you can rewatch, literally, how you guys fell in love. It’s cheesy. I dunno.”

“It’s so awesome,” Brendon says, “Josh sent me some stuff from my folder and it’s _great_. I love myself.”

Pete takes the flash drive, and gives Josh a huge smile, “Wow, this is actually really cool. Thanks, man!”, and they share a brief hug, and Josh grabs his camera back from Brendon’s hands.

“Wait, I want my footage too!” Gabe says, “I look good on camera.”

“You guys are so obsessed with yourselves,” Vicky shakes her head at them, but then she adds afterwards, “But I want my stuff too. Duh.”

They all go off on a tangent for a while, just talking about rewatching all of their old episodes and realizing just how stupid they were _(“Hey Pete,”_ Brendon said, “ _Remember when you and Mikey were friends with bene-_ “ and then Pete threw a pillow at his face and said, “ _Shut. Up. We don’t talk about Vampire-Who-Sucks-Souls-Instead-Of-Blood_ ), until they get back into the scheme of things when Joe accidentally knocks their bag over, and 7 different colored moleskin journals fall out (boy).

“Ughhhh,” Joe groans, as he reaches down to get them, and Vicky says, “Well… that’s your gift from us. A rainbow of new journals, for ‘something new’. Because… well, you can never have too many, huh?”

The camera zooms in on a gross looking spiral notebook that Pete’s been scribbling in, and then zooms out to see Pete picking up the journals and running his hands over them. “This is too fancy,” he says, with wide eyes, “you gotta take it back.”

“Yeah, you’re smacked,” Vicky says, “keep them! That way, when you publish your poetry  book, you can thank us for giving you the best journals you’ve ever laid your eyes on, and it affected the quality of your writing. And it’s like different colors, you could write sad stuff in the blue one, sex ones in the red one, the whole shebang.”

\---

VICKY: Pete goes hard, haha, pun intended, when he writes poems about sex. I’ve heard them. At open mic. At school. In front of the students. About Patrick. Who was sitting next to me.

PATRICK: Yeah, Pete’s poems about me… ( _buries his head in his hands and starts laughing out of sheer embarrassment_ ) It’s hot but it’s just… ( _starts laughing again_ )

\---

“Yeah, you’re right,” Pete says, and he gives her a hug too and gives Joe this sort of ‘bro’ handshake. “Thanks guys, now I’ll definitely acknowledge you in the back of the book. I’ll divide it into sections, just based on the journals. ‘The Red: Passionate Sex, The Orange: Oranges”

“Me too?” Brendon asks with a hopeful expression on his face, referring to being acknowledged in the back of the book, and Pete just shrugs him off with a _‘oh, yeah, sure’._ “Alright, who’s next?” he asks, and Ryan raises his hand. “Me.”

He gets up from his spot on the bed and he says, “So, I’m part of the ‘something borrowed’ category-“

“Cause Ryan’s a thief, he stole my heart,” Brendon interjects quickly, and Vicky rolls her eyes so hard that it looks kinda painful.

“Anyways,” Ryan says, before he reaches into his back pocket, and produces an eyeliner pencil, one that Pete gapes at, open jaw and everything. “What the ~~fuck~~?!” he shouts, “You didn’t borrow that, you ~~fuckin~~ ’- that’s where my pencil went?!”

He snatches the pencil out of his hands, and cradles it close to his chest. “This was my favorite one!”

Ryan doesn’t look too apologetic. “Oops? You were pissing me off and I knew that the line was being discontinued, so I just… took it. I was being petty, you said some shit about Coldplay, you know how these things go. But… you have it back now!”

“Wait,” Vicky’s eyebrows furrow together, and she looks between the crusty eyeliner pencil and the $80 worth of journals she bought, “ _that’s_ your present? That’s probably 3 years ex—“

But Pete’s already facing the mirror, applying the smooth eyeliner to his waterline, and right underneath it, before he uses his finger to smudge the lines a little, so that it’s smoky. He points finger guns to his reflection, and Gabe takes a picture of it with his free hand (the other hand is still buried in the bag of chips)

Vicky sighs deeply. “That’s _so_ unsanitary.”

\---

VICKY: This baby is changing me, I swear to God. 3 months ago? I would have _gladly_ put that eyeliner on knowing full well that Ryan used it too, and now I’m like “NOOOO! THINK ABOUT ALL OF THE BACTERIA! KEEP YOUR BODIES HEALTHY!”

\---

Pete turns back to the group with his lined eyes, and it’s pretty easy to tell why Pete was upset about losing it to Ryan’s pettiness- his brown eyes suddenly look like pools of warm, gooey caramel and they stand out so much more. “I’m happy I got it back,” he says, before he glares at Ryan, “even though it was _stolen_ , not borrowed.”

“Same difference,” Ryan waves him off, “Just be thankful that I found it.”

And Pete opens his mouth to bitch some more, but then Brendon gets up and says, “Wait, it’s my turn now! My line of the thingy was ‘something blue’, and so, naturally…” he grabs his bag, and takes out a blue ‘on-the-go’ bottle of water based lube.

“Come on, Brendon,” Pete groans, and he pushes the bottle away when Brendon tries to hand it to him, but Brendon insists, and pushes it closer to him as he says, “Take it! From one bottom to another. It’s even water based in case Patrick brought vibrators!”

And Pete gives him another scandalized look, but he _does_ toss it onto the bed, and says after a moment, “It would fit into my jacket pocket, right?”, mostly to himself, like he’s trying to figure out how to sneak it into the gardens, and Brendon nods. “ _Yup_. For the after ceremony sex you guys will have, and don’t pretend like it’s not gonna happen.”

And Pete can’t get mad at the thoughtful and generous gift, so he just gives up on being angry, and he gives Brendon a hug as well, patting his back as he says, “Even though I kinda hate you for this, I can’t lie and say it won’t come in handy, so… and hey, I’ve never tried this brand before either, so… thanks. It looks fancy, like the packaging and stuff.”

“Oh, it feels fancy,” Brendon grins as he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, not that anything really needs to be suggested, and Gabe, who’s still eating chips, says, “Uh… not to be that person, but we have 20 minutes till we gotta go, and Pete’s still not done taming his hair.”

And with that, everyone hurries out of the room to grab their belongings and to get ready to leave.

\---

( _2:30PM- **1 hour and 30 minutes until Pete and Patrick walk down the aisle** \- The camera pans the gardens where they are getting married. Already, there is a small set-up, with chairs in the shade and they’re surrounded by beautiful flowers. There’s a gazebo in front of the set-up with two entrances where Pete and Patrick will walk in from, and then there’s a walkway between the two sections of chairs. It looks kinda… girly, but it’s simple enough to not be too overwhelming if you ignore the wall of blue flowers. Then, the scene switches, and Patrick’s pacing around in his ‘dressing room’ as Travie watches on_)

“I’ll never write anything as good as that again,” Patrick frets, as he continues to walk back and forth between the wall and the door, “I can’t believe I _forgot_ it there! And I moved it from its spot so that I _wouldn’t_ forget it too, it’s the su-“

“If you say ‘ _the supersition’_ , I’m going to fling myself out this window,” Travie threatens, as he crosses his arms over his chest, and so- Patrick shuts up and sighs as he flops down onto the couch. “Maybe this is a good thing,” Travie says to him, “you’ll be speaking from the heart now.”

“I already was speaking from my heart when I wrote it,” Patrick replies, and he reaches into his pocket for some Advil as he continues, “it was actually coherent. Now I’m gonna see Pete up there and say something lame and overly cheesy and start blubbering. Or say something like ‘you’re so hot’”

Travie reaches into his pocket, and throws Patrick a pen, and points to the papery surface of the dry cleaner’s hanger that his suit came in. “You wanna write something down so badly, _there_. Go nuts.”

There’s not much surface to it, and Patrick’s not sure how it would look, going up there with a fucking speech on a hanger, but nevertheless, after he finishes giving Travie a glare, he leans over to grab it, and he balances it on his leg as he clicks the pen. He looks over to the cameraman and says, “You got anything, Tyler?”

The camera shakes, and Patrick groans as he drops his head and says to himself, “Okay… you got this. You… you got this, okay, let’s. _Pete_ … no. _Peter_. No… _Pete_ -“

\---

PATRICK: ( _reading off the hanger_ ) Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz the Third… _(looks up_ ) That’s all I have…

\---

( _Still 3:30- **1 hour and a half until Pete and Patrick walk down the aisle** \- the camera pans the small interior of Pete’s ‘dressing room’, before it lands on him sitting on the couch, with his feet kicked up on the coffee table. He’s texting on his phone, which is plugged into the wall, and Gabe and Ramona are talking about something that Pete’s not paying attention to. His phone chimes again, but this text is something different, because he blinks at his phone and brings it closer to his face, like he’s in disbelief)_

PETE: ( _shows his phone to the camera- the text, from an unknown number, reads: ‘I guess congratulations are in order. -MW’_ )

\---

“Hey…” he says hesitantly, to Gabe, clearing his throat a little since he hasn’t been talking a lot, “do you still talk to, uh, Mikey? Or, like, keep in touch?”

Gabe raises his eyebrows, and he shakes his head. “You’re saying his name now? And nah, why, what happened?”

Ramona looks interested too, and she leans in when Pete shows his phone screen to Gabe. She reads the text, and laughs in a very ‘Brendon about to roast the shit out of someone/sing a revenge piece’ kind of way. “The hell? Yeah, congrats are in order, but why now? Like… he’s not being genuine, he probably expects you to fall under his false but addicting charm.”

Pete’s words about Mikey clearly has had an effect on Ramona, because she sounds exactly like her brother. Gabe just nods along with her, “Yeah, that’s sketchy.”

“I mean, how do I reply to that?” Pete asks, and his fingers hover over the keyboard on his phone as he tries to think of the right response. “There’s no—like, I don’t want to talk to him. But I don’t want to dead him either, how about-“

He types out ‘ **thanks’** , but Ramona shakes her head. “Make it a capital T, and add a period. Let him know that ~~shit~~ is final.”

Pete nods, deletes what he had, and types ‘Thanks.’ before he hastily sends the text Mikey’s way. Except, his signature is still added to it automatically, and so-

**_‘Thanks. – Sent from Pete’s iPhone_**

“Ew!” Ramona blurts out, and she looks at Pete’s phone with a horrified expression on her face, “Why do you have an emoji in your signature… and why do you have a signature in the first place?!”

“I don’t know! I just… do!” Pete stammers, as the chat bubble appears.

“What’s he gonna say? ‘Nice emoji’?” Gabe wonders outloud, but his question gets answered in an instant.

_‘Never thought you’d marry him, but it’s cute. He still look like the Pillsbury Doughboy? -MW"_

Ramona is speechless, but Gabe chokes over his own laughter. “What the ~~fuck~~! He called Patrick the Pillsbury Doughboy?! That’s so cold, HAHA.”

Pete jumps off the couch, and starts shouting at his phone, even though he’s not on a call with Mikey. “ ~~FUCK~~ YEAH, IT’S CUTE. It’s ~~fucking~~ adorable! He’s the only ~~fucking~~ source of stability in my life and the only one who keeps me sane half of the time you… you soul-sucking vampire! And yeah, he’s still chubby and it’s ~~fuckin~~ ’ hot as hell!”

“He does know he’s yelling at nothing, right?” Gabe whispers to Ramona, and she whispers back, “I know he’s old but I think he knows how technology works...?”

“And you know what, _Mikey_ , I’m happy to get married and to throw my bachelor life away and never be single again and I’m ~~fuckin~~ ’ ready to get married! So… ~~suck my dick~~! Actually, don’t!”

He throws his phone on the couch and he seethes with anger. “ ~~Fuck~~ Mikey Way!”

Ramona just gets up, and ushers him back to the couch. “That’s the spirit. Now, calm down, let me get you some water or something.”

Gabe just laughs again as Pete continues to pant, because he’s so out of breath. “At least we know you’re not having second thoughts, huh?"                                                                                                                                             
\---

PETE: I realize that as a writer, I should probably have a better vocabulary and a better, like, word bank when it comes to things to say about him, so that I’m not just repeating the same ‘ ~~suck my dick~~ ’ and ‘soul-sucking vampire’ thing but… ( _lets out a frustrated sound that sounds kind of like a snarl_ ) _No one_ can piss me off like he can. And if you’re gonna call Patrick the Pillsbury Doughboy, it better be with better intentions! Like, ‘Patrick, you’re so cute and buttery, like the Pillsbury Doughboy. I just wanna eat you up’. And then he’ll look at you like you’re crazy and say something like ‘You want to eat me?’ and then you say, ‘Yeah, but like, in a hypothetical sense’ and he says—I’ve never had this conversation before, I’m just _saying_ that-

\---

_(3PM- **1 hour before Pete and Patrick walk down the aisle** \- Ashley, Bill, and Sisky are the only people at the gardens. They’re all dressed for the wedding, Ashley’s blue hair is curled and her short and sleeveless pale pink lace dress serves as a contrast against the vibrant flowers. She’s wearing fuzzy socks, though- her heels are kicked off somewhere. Bill and Sisky are wearing fancy clothes too, and Bill’s tie has the quadratic formula on it, cause he’s a huge nerd. Sisky’s hair is pretty much his accessory, Ashley gave him something to make the curls pop out and not look so frizzy. Oh, and Ashley’s helping Sisky put eye drops into his eyes. She’s standing on a chair)_

“Stay _still_ ,” she groans, as she grips his jaw with one hand, to keep his head in place. “You have to keep your eyes open, or else it’s not gonna go in. And then we’re gonna have to do this all over again!”

“Don’t you think it would have been a smart idea to mention that you’re, I don’t know, _~~fucking~~ allergic to pollen_?! Or take some Benadryl?! We’re in a _garden_ ,” William badgers, with his arms crossed, as he watches the precession. Ashley standing on a chair in her fuzzy socks and Sisky flinching every time she tries to get the eye drops in.

The sneezing and coughing started as soon as they got there… which makes sense because they’re, again, in William’s words, in a _garden_ , surrounded by _flowers_ and _plants_.

“I _forgot_ ,” Sisky moans pathetically, and Ashley shrieks at him, “Oh my God, Sisky, stop moving!!!!”

Their 5th attempt to get the eye drops into his eyes is successful- she doesn’t even tell him when she’s going to do it, so it’s a quick in and out. He blinks a couple of times, and she wipes the excess off of his face before she wipes that on one of the few tissues Sisky has left.

“Why don’t we just go inside? I’ll put my shoes on two chairs and Sisky, you leave your used tissues on another one, and then we’ll just come back, cause you kinda look like you’re dying. And I want some chocolate milk.”

William makes a face- milk is gross.

“And then we find everyone else! You still pissed at Gabe?” she asks, and William shrugs. “Don’t have any time to be pissed.”

\---

WILLIAM: It’s really… hard to keep a long distance relationship together. Everyone says it, and Gabe and I do see each other often, but it just… ( _he sighs_ ). It’s not that I _want_ to get mad, but we can’t even afford to get mad at each other, because I’m leaving tomorrow, and we barely even got to see each other this time, and it… _(he sighs again like he’s trying to find the right words to say_ ). Like, when we first saw each other, and we fell into the pool. It shouldn’t _be_ that desperate. And I think about our good times, and I love them, but I know I’m holding him back. No one wants a quote unquote twinky boyfriend, who’s young and always down for sex, when you’re not even _with_ them 3/4 th of the time, and you just have to resort to skype sex. It’s a miracle he hasn’t dumped me already. Or cheated on me. _(frowns_ )

\---

“Oh,” she says, before she links his arm with hers. “Wanna talk about it? Sisk, let’s go, we’re getting chocolate milk and maybe they’ll have some over the counter drugs for you.”

And with a shrug from Sisky, the trio begin their trudge up to the building and the cafeteria area. But then, when Ashley’s eye catches the camera, it’s like she remembers it’s there, so she looks directly into it, and says, “Give me the camera.”

She takes it without waiting for a response, and focuses it on the cameraman, Tyler, who just mostly looks confused at the sudden change. “Wait—alright, I guess we’re doing this now,” he says as he blinks at her, watching on helplessly as Ashley hands the camera to Sisky. “I want this conversation to be documented. Don’t sneeze on the camera.”

From the looks of it, Tyler suddenly wishes he were back with Josh.

Ashley’s now in the frame, and she says, sweetly and with a smile, “So, how’s the song coming along?”

A sigh. Tyler scratches the back of his neck and he mumbles “Fine. Just peachy. Can I get my camera back now?”

“Good,” Ashley says, still with that sinister smile, “I just wanted to make sure you didn't forget about it, I can’t wait to hear it. Because-“

“That’s what I get for playing you? Yeah I know,” he snaps at her, and William just rests a hand on his shoulder and says in a voice that isn’t reassuring at all, “It’s okay man, it happens to all us. You just gotta… ride it out.”

Sisky hands the camera back to Tyler after that, not because Ashley said to or anything, but because he had to sneeze.

\---

( _3:15PM- **45 minutes before Pete and Patrick walk down the aisle** \- Brendon’s sitting next to Patrick, clad in his leopard print suit, as Patrick complains next to him. Brendon looks bored out of his mind_)

“-and then you _actually_ showed up in the leopard print suit and-“

“Which I told you I was gonna do since day one, I’m a lot of things, like a master at manipulation, but I’m not a _liar_.”

“…yeah, but _Brendon_. Brendon, oh my _God_. And that’s—that’s the same thing!”

Brendon folds his hands over his crossed legs. “Patrick. We’ve had multiple conversations about how I was gonna come out and slay everyone while simultaneously blinding everyone with the sequins on this bitch. You’re just finding ~~shit~~ to worry about.”

To be fair to Patrick, it is a lot to handle. It’s nothing like the sparkle suit that Brendon wore to opening night of Beauty and the Beast, but in its own way, it’s worse. The ugly pattern on the blazer contrasting with the light blue button down underneath it, and the matching pants, and the fact that it’s sequined, all of this added together looks just as ugly as it sounds. Brendon looks good in it, but that’s not really the point.

But to be fair to Brendon, Patrick’s been freaking out and stressing all day, and driving himself up a wall for no reason at all. Well, there’s a reason, but since Brendon doesn’t believe in superstition, it’s a stupid and doesn’t count. If anything, he thinks it’d be smart to see the person you’re going to marry before the ceremony. And not even because of Brendon’s theories about before-the-ceremony sex- because they’ll calm you, and if someone isn’t your calm, are they even worth marrying?

Gears look like they’re turning in his head, he looks like he’s stirring up an idea so while Patrick continues to rattle off about God-knows-what, he starts to text. And after a couple of moments of intense texting and facial expressions from Brendon’s end, he says, “Patrick, dude, you’re not you when you’re hungry. Plus, we don’t need you fainting while you’re walking, there’s a vending machine right by the front.”

He pulls his wallet out of his suit pocket, and hands Patrick 4 singles. “Get yourself a Snickers or something.”

“Isn’t it my wedding?” Patrick grumbles, although he takes the singles from Brendon’s hand. “Shouldn’t _you_ be getting me stuff?”

Brendon gives him a dark look. “Don’t push it, bitch. I gave you money, my legs are too sore to walk all the way down there. The position that Ryan had me in last night-“

And with that, Patrick stalks off. Brendon smirks into the camera, and he quickly pulls his phone out and sends a quick text, before he puts it back in his pocket. He looks like he’s about to start talking to the camera, but then, across the hall, he hears his name being called, so he heads in that direction.

\---

( _3:20PM- **40 minutes before Pete and Patrick walk down the aisle** \- Brendon walks into the girl’s ‘dressing room’, and Vicky’s struggling to zip her dress up_)

“Hi,” she says when she sees Brendon coming in, (and she rolls her eyes when she sees Josh with him) “can you help me with this? I can’t… like, it won’t go, and Joe’s in the other room tuning the guitar.”

“I could do that by ear, he should have come to me,” Brendon says airily, but he stands behind Vicky and they both look into the mirror: Vicky’s all dressed up besides the bridesmaid dress, the baby blue dress that falls off the shoulder and goes down to her knees, the dress that’s a total _drag_ to put on, and Brendon’s eyes fall on her stomach.

“Sheesh, Vicks,” he says, “too much lunch or something?”

It’s not noticeable, kinda, but it _does_ look like she’s bloated. But, judging from her facial expression, _she_ was the one who was supposed to comment on her weight, not _Brendon_.

“You’re an _asshole_ ,” she hisses, and she jabs him in the stomach, and says through his groan of pain, “just help me zip it up, I’m gonna be covering my stomach the flowers anyways.”

But when Brendon tries, it’s a no-go. It zips up some, but not enough.

“I’m not being judgmental, er, yeah, I swear, but you gotta suck your stomach in a little. I do it when I’m roleplaying in bed and have to wear a corset, it’ll pinch a little but it’ll feel normal after a little bit.”

\---

BRENDON: No questions, please.

\---

“I can’t,” she says, and she pushes Brendon away with a sigh. “ ~~Fuck~~. I really thought it was gonna fit. Can we pin it?”

“Vicky, just _do it,_ ” he complains, and he moves closer, “no food baby is worth it! Don’t be stupid.”

“It’s not a _food_ baby, it’s-“ she tries to say, before she stops in her tracks, and just shakes her head. “What should we do?”

“Force it?” Brendon says, like a question, “Alright, we can do this. I’ve squeezed into way too many skinny jeans by sheer luck, let’s just hope.”

This time though, after lots of Brendon struggling and yanking the zipper up, pushing the sides where the zipper should meet closer together, through Vicky complaining, they finally get it zipped up enough so that it looks normal. And there is a bump, but if Vicky folds her hands over it, it just looks like a sort of shadow.

“There,” he sighs with exhaustion. “Lesson learned, don’t fill up on-“ “Shut up,” she interrupts, giving him a faux glare, she can’t really be mad at him after he helped her so greatly, and he laughs as he pinches her cheeks. “Kidding. I’m gonna go open a bottle champagne cause I’m super bored and need something to do- you comin’?”

“Champagne? Yeah, no,” she says sadly, “already bloated, remember?”

Brendon hums in understandment. “Oh, right, duuuuuhhhh. Okay, peace out then, see ya on the aisle.”

He throws up a peace sign, and then goes off to get his drink, but then Vicky calls out, “Wait! Just— ~~fuck~~ , okay, come here, I have something to tell you.”

He gives the camera a weird look before he sits down in one of the chairs in the room. He gives her a worried glance, and says, “What’s wrong?”

She places a hand on the baby bump and she opens her mouth to tell him, the words are already on her tongue, but Brendon sorta beats her to it when his eyes widen when he sees where her hands are. “Oh my God. Oh my God? Real baby…?!”

She ducks her head and smiles. “Uh… yeah. Real baby.”

And then Brendon literally screeches with happiness as he gets up and shakes her shoulders. “VICTORIA T. ASHER!!!!! ~~Fuck~~!!! ~~_Fuck_~~! You’re having a baby! A ~~fuckin~~ ’ baby! A _baby_! Wait, when did you… when is the due date, when—WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME SOONER?!”

“Brendon, _calm the ~~fuck~~ down_ ,” she laughs loudly when he grabs her and engulfs her in a huge hug, “and they said late January, but—“

He immediately lets go and blinks at her. “Ew, an Aquarius?”

But then a moment later, he grabs her to hug her again, and he sways her as he says, “ ~~Fuck~~ it, I don’t even care if your kid is gonna be an Aquarius, I’ll learn to love them even though Aquariuses can ~~suck my dick~~. But- VIC-KEEEYYYYY! I don’t even know what to ~~fuckin~~ ’ say, I’m—VICKY! A BABY! Genders are a social construct, but…”

He pauses, waiting for a response, and Vicky, who’s _still_ being strangled by Brendon, swats at his shoulders and says, “I’ll tell you if you let me go,” and when she does, she says, “A boy, but-“

“ ** _BRENDON_**!!!” he screams loudly, “Name him _Brendon_! After me! Or maybe even Gwen Stefani, but like… Gwendo? Stefan? Or-“

“We didn’t pick a name, but I’ll keep you posted,” she says, even though the glance she sends the camera’s direction says otherwise.

“This is so exciting,” he gushes, and he sounds so genuine that it’s making Vicky a little emotional, “I’m going to start crying for you, holy ~~shit~~. I know you don’t like kids, but—aah, Vicky! Joe’s gonna be a- wait, Joe’s the dad, right?”

She smacks him upside the head when she exclaims, “yeah, dumbass!”

“Yeah, so Joe’s gonna be a real dad, you’re gonna be a _mother_ , Mittens the kitten is gonna have a _brother_ , Pete and Patrick are getting married, too much is happening!”

“Yeah, well,” she says with a shrug, “We’re getting old. One of these days you’re gonna get wrinkly, and-“

And then Brendon covers his ears and screams “AAAAAHHH” so that he doesn’t have to hear her, and he just straight up walks out of the door, just like that. Vicky stares at where he was just standing, and says to herself with a confused expression on her face, “Well… that was… easy…”

\---

BRENDON: I love Harry Potter so much, Slytherin or die, but wow… can’t say that I don't relate to and understand my boy Tom Riddle. Well, kinda. He never wanted to die, and I never wanna get old. To be honest though, if I looked like how Lord Voldemort did, _I’d_ wanna die… he’s ugly as ~~shit~~.

RYAN: What house do I belong to? Uh… I don’t care? ( _he pauses and then says quietly_ ) Hufflepuff…

VICKY: Yo, ~~fuck~~ that! I’m a Hufflepuff, we’re awesome! We need more Hufflepuff pride, I’m so tired of seeing Gryffindor and Sytherin stuff all of the time. Cedric Diggory didn’t deserve what happened to him, and I’ll personally beat the ~~shit~~ out of J.K Rowling for doing what she did to him… wait, oh, yeah, what was the question? ( _JOSH: …How did it feel telling Brendon?)_ Oh. Good! So, back to what I was saying about Cedric-

\---

( _Camera pans the area where the vending machines are- there's a couple of benches adjacent from 3 machines. Pete, dressed in his tux, stands in front of the machine that's stocking all of the candy. Patrick rounds the corner, and immediately gasps_ )

"Pete, what the ~~fuck~~?!" Patrick exclaims, pressing his hands over his face and covering his eyes. But it's too late- he's already seen Pete, now twice before the service. He peeks through his fingers as Pete stares at him, in shock. "Wow," he says, through a small laugh, "we have the worst luck. And I see you peeking-"

He takes a step closer, and he removes Patrick's hands from his face. "There. We already saw each other this morning, what are we gonna get? Double the bad luck?"

His attempt at a joke is unsuccessful, because Patrick's eyes just widen and he grips Pete's hands hard as he says, "I'm freaking out! I forgot the ~~fuckin~~ ', the ~~fucking~~ vows in the room, and you know I'm bad at words, and I- I tried to rewrite them but my brain is full of shit right now, and we're- we're getting married!"

"Yeah! And, hey, we're good, come on, let's breathe, let me buy you something, Ryan gave me 4 bucks, I'll get you-"

"Ryan??!! Ryan... Ryan sent you here?"

Pete blinks at Patrick and nods, holding up the 4 bucks. "Yeah, said something about-"

"Not fainting down the aisle? Yeah, Brendon told me the same."

He holds up Brendon's 4 singles, and then he slumps down onto one of the benches as he says, "I guess they're still pissed about the maid of honor thing, but- really? They would do this?"

"Actually..." Pete sits down next to Patrick, and he turns so that he's facing Patrick, "I think they did it cause they knew that we were both, like, going crazy. Just, like, seeing you... all of my nerves are gone."

"Wish I felt the same," Patrick says, still looking a little frantic. His eyes keep switching from staring into Pete's, to the wall, to the vending machines, and he says, "I left the vows in the room, Gabe is gonna marry us, I'm still a little hungover, Brendon's wearing-- _what he's wearing_ , and..." he eventually melts into Pete's touch when Pete wraps his arm around his shoulder, "I don't know what I expected. Like, maybe once there could be some ~~fucking~~ normalcy."

"At least they didn't send us funeral flowers, right?" Pete asks, and Patrick lets out a dry chuckle. "Yeah, don't hold your breath."

"If it's any consolation, I had a bad day too," Pete says, and he reaches into his back pocket to retrieve his phone. "Mikey texted me saying 'congratulations' and then..." he trails off, realizing a little too late that he probably shouldn't tell Patrick about Mikey calling him fat on the day of their wedding.

Patrick raises his eyebrows. "Some fat joke? You know I don't care about what he says."

Pete hands Patrick his phone and Patrick blinks down at the screen. "Nice emoji," he jokes, and then his eyebrows raise again when he reads what Mikey said, "Wait, he said I was the Pillsbury Doughboy? Didn't you tell me that I was that too, and I was, like, buttery and-"

Pete quickly motions to Patrick to stop talking by bringing his hands up to his throat and pretending to saw it off, almost. Patrick side-eyes the camera and he says, "Well anyways... I'm sorry that he texted you. You didn't reply though?"

"Yeah, well. I was gonna delete it, I _am_ going to delete it, but I was gonna show you first. Like... I guess him saying that was... like it's just another reminder to me that I ~~fucking~~ love you. I fall in love with assholes, and you're the exception that proves the existence of the rule. I'm just glad that you, y'know... like me too."

"I don't _like_ you, I love you!" Patrick laughs, and Pete cups his face, smiling at him gently before he kisses him.

A kiss that quickly gets heated, there's lots of breathy sighs and tongue action, and Pete's fingers move down to grip Patrick's thigh, and he groans when Patrick's hands roam over his chest. "How much time do we have? I have lube, do you have a-"

"No," Patrick groans, "I don't. ~~_Fuck_~~."

They let go of each other, and Patrick wiped his mouth on the back of his hand as Pete glances down at his watch. "We only have... 20 minutes until we have to walk, and get ready and stuff?" he sighs, "It couldn't have happened anyways. I guess we really have to wait until marriage then."

"Shut up," Patrick swats at his arm, "you're not funny. And we always have after... like... directly after, after we do pictures. I'm sure Gabe has a condom on him... or like 7."

"And the bathrooms in the other wing are big," notes Pete with a sly grin on his face.

"And far enough away that no one will look for us. They'll just assume-" "we're having sex?"

A pause. And then Patrick laughs, "Yeah, kinda. And here-" he gives Pete one of the dollar bills, "-can you buy a pack of M&Ms?"

He takes the dollar from Patrick's hand, gets up, and punches in the number for the M&Ms, before he opens the package and sits back down next to Patrick as he pours a couple into his hand. "I think the most important part is that we're together. Like, so what if the world threw us a little curveball with the whole officiant thing? We should have expected it last night when Gabe was filling in... it was like foreshadowing, but in real life. And with everything else today too, like it's you and me against the world."

Patrick leans his head on Pete's shoulder, and sighs. But it's not a pissed off kind of sigh, it's out of content. "Yeah, I love you."

And they kiss, hands full of melting M&Ms, in front of the bright vending machines.

\---

PATRICK: I don't give Brendon and Ryan enough credit. Like, ever. And the thing about it was, I was so afraid to see Pete before the wedding that I was just being stupid, he calmed me down both times and... damn, Pete's the best, isn't he? I mean, I think he's into vore and peeing on me, but we can overlook these things.

BRENDON: Patrick said he doesn't give me enough credit? Yeah… I ~~FUCKIN~~ ’ KNOW! _I KNOW!_

\---

_(3:57PM- **3 minutes until Pete and Patrick walk down the aisle** \- Ashley, Sisky, and William are running toward where the ceremony is taking place. Ashley’s still clutching her box of chocolate milk in her hands)_

“I think they’re starting!” Ashley yells, “Look! Guys, let’s go!”

She, however, takes a second to sip from her box of Yoo-hoo. But as soon as that’s done, they go back to racing back.

But, they haven’t started yet- Joe’s just tapping a beat on his guitar as he waits for his signal. And all of the relatives and the family friends are mostly admiring the flowers, taking pictures in front of the beautiful blue wall of roses, noting things like ‘wow, this _is_ gay’, and making plans for the reception. There are still 3 free seats in the front, untouched, thanks to Ashley’s 6 inch heels and Sisky’s tissues.

Gabe’s in the gazebo, and he’s on his second beer. He doesn’t look any different, he’s still wearing a sleek black tuxedo, except now there’s a pin of a cobra on the front of his jacket. He looks over to the camera and gives it a thumbs up.

\---

GABE: PUMPED! I’m pumped! I’ve never been an officiant but it’s never too late to try!

\---

Meanwhile, the trio finally gets into their seats. Ashley breathes heavily as she sucks on the straw of her drink, to rejuvenate herself, and William and Gabe exchange small smiles as they wave to each other.

She pulls her fuzzy socks off, and she says, “Sisky, just stuff all of your used tissues in these, and—get up! We have to—oh, ~~shit~~ , they’re coming!”

Sisky, from his spot on the ground, he’s lying face down on the grass, quickly gets up on his feet when everyone else does, and he stands in front of his chair as Joe begins to strum the beginning notes to the wedding march. Well, not the wedding march, but Pete and Patrick’s wedding march- ‘ _Across The Universe’_ by The Beatles, because the actual wedding march would be too corny. Not that ‘ _Across The Universe’_ isn’t corny in itself. It’s an acoustic guitar hooked up to nothing, but Joe manages to get it across, and everyone stops what they’re doing to be quiet. (Ashley’s still struggling to put her heels on, with one hand, while standing up, but that’s a different story)

The bridesmaids and groomsmen walk out first- Travie and Ramona, Patrick’s sister and Brendon (Ashley gapes at Brendon’s outfit and mutters under her breath ‘Genius. I want a leopard print dress with blue accents pronto’), and Ryan and Vicky. And then, as the guitar comes to the ‘nothing’s gonna change my world’ section, after the flower girls walk down the middle of the aisle from the opposite direction and take their seats, Pete and Patrick walk in.

There are lots of angles going on at once- Josh has Pete’s side, Pete’s mostly making funny faces at Patrick, and Tyler has Patrick’s, who just gives him a wave and mouths ‘you look like an idiot’. It’s a short walk thankfully, there’s nothing more awkward than a long walk to someone while you’re staring directly at them, but you can’t move faster.

The song comes to a close with a simple cadencial chord when Pete and Patrick make it to the gazebo. Patrick whispers “Hi,” and Pete whispers back, “Hey.”

Joe sets his guitar down and takes a seat as Gabe downs his bottle of beer (Pete and Patrick both wince at this), clears his throat, and then says, “Dearly beloved, we have gathered here to witness the marriage of Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump, and—“

Sisky sneezes loudly. Ashley brings her free hand to her forehead.

“ _And_ since this is a Cobra wedding, we don’t have to do all of that other boring ~~shit~~. I mean… shoot. Yeah, we don’t have to do all of that other shoot. But first things first- does only one object to this L.I.T couple?”

Even if anyone did, Patrick’s glare as he looked across the lawn at their family and friends would have stopped them dead in their tracks. And so, after he scans the crowd, he grins and looks back to Pete. Ryan, in the corner of the frame, has his eyes closed and he’s leaning against the side of the gazebo, fast asleep, as Brendon snapchats the entire thing. In the crowd, Ashley slurps on her chocolate milk loudly, and Sisky continues to sneeze. And these are all signs of a disaster coming, one of the flower girls falls out of her seat and starts to cry, but Pete and Patrick just give each other exasperated glances and then crack smiles at the sheer ridiculousness. Pete was right- they were in this together.

“Good! Cobras aren’t about hostility and conflict. Alright, so… Patrick, you wanna say your vows first?” Gabe asks, and Patrick slowly agrees when he realizes he doesn’t have much of a choice, even though during the rehearsals, Pete was the one who was going to first. Ashley smiles at Patrick when they make brief eye contact, and she cheers, “Yay, Mr. Stump!”, which prompts everyone to cheer Patrick on.

He takes Pete’s hands in his, he takes a deep breath, and he says, “Alright… so, in the madness of the day, I sorta forgot my vows in the room, and I tried to write them down again, but… okay, see, this is the reason why I- _Pete Wentz_. Pete, I love you. Ever since that first day at work, when you showed me all of the shortcuts and then told me that I kinda resembled a lost puppy. You—um, you… even when I had nothing, or when the musical drives me crazy, or when I want to murder my students, or when I… okay, going off track, um… you inspire me every day, you push me to be better, to do things I never thought I could do, like performing songs we wrote together on an actual stage, things like write _that_ guitar line, and take _that_ direction in the musical. Even this- baring my soul in front of an audience without the reassurance of a piece of paper in my hand. But _you_ are my reassurance. Your smile and the crowfeet that appear when you—yeah, like that. I promise to be there on the good days and the bad days, to buy you the yellow flowers you love from the market, to love you even when you can’t love yourself. I’ll take you for better… wait, is that, yes, okay, I’ll take you for better and for worst, and in rich and in poor, and in sickness and health until death do us part. I love you.”

He looks over to Gabe, and cocks his head to the side a little, asking silently ‘is there anything else I need to do’, and Gabe shakes his head, as he claps his hands. “Okay! Yes!”

He hands Patrick Pete’s ring from the inside of his pocket, and Patrick slides the ring on his ring finger easily, as Gabe says, “Okay, your turn, Pete.”

They go back to holding each other’s hands, and Pete smiles as he says, “Well, nothing I say is gonna have _anything_ on that, but I’ll try. You bring light into my life, Patrick. You’re the light in Chicago, the skyline we drive home to, the beautiful ache in my chest. And in your beauty, to quote Rumi, I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art. Patrick, I’m addicted to the way I feel when I think of you, you’re a violent storm and I want to always be caught in the middle of it. You save me every day, you keep me alive with hook lines that bring me back to shore, and I promise to do the same. To bring you chicken noodle soup without vegetables in them because I know you hate them, to wait on you hand and foot when you’re sick with your favorite record on repeat. I promise to honor you all the days of my life, I’ll take all of the steps around the fire with you, I promise to always tell you that I love you, and to leave you a cup of a coffee in the morning. Promise to always make fun of your Velcro sneakers, because who would I be if I didn’t, and promise to love you with a love that’s more than a love. We’ll break death’s heart together, and I’ll love you until I can’t…”

He takes a deep breath, laughing a little as he wipes away some of the tears on Patrick’s face, and Patrick mutters under his breath, “You ~~fucking~~ asshole, yours is so much better than mine”

And Pete finishes off by holding Patrick’s hands again and saying, “And okay, even for me, it’d be a little too, er, _emo_ to end this on a note so morbid, so I’ll just say this instead- I love you, a thousand times over.”

He glances over to Gabe too, and Gabe claps his hands again, after Pete puts Patrick’s ring on him, “Woo! Okay! Alright! Uh… and you guys take each other to be your lawfully wedded husbands?”

Pete and Patrick both nod eagerly, and Gabe adds, “And you guys promise to honor the Cobra Code? To always stay L.I.T? Loving, Intelligent (about your choices when it comes to if you should have another drink or another _two_ drinks), and Trustful?”

They, again, nod eagerly, although they do look a little confused at the acronym.

The camera zooms in on Brendon, who elbows Ryan in the stomach. He wakes up instantly, and Brendon says to him, “You better pay attention, this is going to be us soon,”, and in the crowd, Ashley joins Sisky in blowing her nose, even though his is from allergies, and hers are from crying.

“Cool,” Gabe exclaims, before he says, “Patrick, may now kiss the br- _Pete_. You may now kiss the Pete.”

And oh, does Patrick kiss Pete. It’s a full-fledged make-out session, they cup each other’s jaws, and practically eat each other’s faces off with how intense their kiss is, and Pete moans when Patrick pulls on his hair a little. It goes on for a full minute, everyone’s cheering them on, Brendon takes pictures for later, and Ashley shrieks ‘GET IT MR. STUMP AND MR. WENTZ! I MEAN, MR. STUMP-WENTZ AND MR. WENTZ-STUMP! WAIT, I DON’T REALLY KNOW HOW YOU’RE WORKING OUT THE LAST NAME THING, BUT- GET IT PATRICK AND PETE!’ before Gabe has to rip them apart, which isn’t something Patrick would do, like, at all.

But exceptions can be made when it’s a wedding. Or _his_ wedding.                                                                  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHH! THE WEDDDINGGGGGG IS DOOOOOOOOOONE! im a hindu and im guyanese and i literally havent been a wedding in years that wasn't a typical indian wedding (the last ""white"" wedding i went to was when i was 7 and i dont remember shit and even then it was a jewish wedding so my only memories are like my uncle just smashing the glass under his foot and me getting my nails done cause i was a flower girl) but.... i mean gabe belongs to a snake church? and it takes place in a garden? basically, im sorry if anything was too painfully inaccurate but all logic kinda flies out the door for this fic. like in what universe would they air gabe being in a relationship w his student and there not be national uproar+him not getting fired??? this universe.. clearly 
> 
> also im sorry about the lack of ash+billiam+sisky in this chapter :( next chapter is gonna be everyone because there's really only one setting- the hall where the reception takes place. we got ashley, brendon&ryan, and tyler's performance, the first dance, ppl getting drunk and dancing to sean paul's 'get busy' (shake dat ting miss cana cana shake dat ting miss annabella shake dat ting ya donna donna jodi and rebecca!!!!) the WHOLE WORKS! i even have a playlist im gonna include next chapter which has like a whole bunch of songs i listened to while imagining and planning out the reception like its LITTT


	3. Reception

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little disclaimer: ive never been drunk before and i,,, literally KNOW that some of this is inaccurate (esp the long paragraphs of dialogue) but,,, just please go with it lol

( _Brendon’s sitting on Ryan’s lap, and they’re both posing as Vicky takes countless pictures of the two of them. Well, Brendon’s posing. Ryan’s mostly straight-faced, but he has his arm loosely wrapped around Brendon’s waist, so Brendon’s not complaining. The ceremony ended about 2 hour ago, and everyone ate snacks before taking the obligatory wedding pictures that stressed Patrick out so much that he angrily stomped toward the bathrooms with an Advil bottle in one hand and Pete’s wrist in the other. Everyone’s about to leave to go to the hall where the reception is taking place but they’re waiting on the newly-weds_ )

“What’s taking them so long?” Brendon whines, as he rest his head on Ryan’s shoulder. “This shouldn’t take _40 minutes_ , aren’t old people supposed to come fast?”

“They’re probably in there hiding from you,” Vicky says, snickering to herself as she hands Brendon’s phone back to him, and he glares up at her and says, “That’s _mean_. You shouldn’t say stuff like that while you’re pregnant cause your baby is gonna hear and become a total bitch.”

Ryan chokes over his own spit, and he sputters out, “Her—her what?!”

“Wait, you _didn’t_ tell him?” Vicky asks, genuinely surprised, “I’m shocked. I thought you were going to tell him as soon as you ran out of the room.”

Brendon pouts, like he’s never been more offended in his life. “I can keep a secret,” he says, with his arm crossed, and Vicky rolls her eyes as she takes a seat next to the couple. “Not well enough, since you literally just spilled the beans.”

“Can we just—you’re with child?” Ryan asks, looking like a little grossed out, but he tries to hide it with a smile… that comes across more like a grimace. “I mean… yay? Kids…”

\---

RYAN: There’s nothing else I couldn’t care less more about than babies. Which is a problem, because…

BRENDON: BABIES!!!!! If Vicky-T doesn’t make Ryan and I godfathers, expect a baby shower version of ‘ ~~Fuck~~ Her Gently’ from yours truly. ‘ _You don’t always rock him gently, in fact sometimes it’s not right to do. Sometimes you gotta throw your baby out the window and let him play in traffic too’_

\---

“Don’t look too excited, Ryan.” Vicky rolls her eyes once more, and then she sighs deeply when Brendon gives her another pout. “I’m just pissed that I’m gonna have to watch you guys have fun and get totally wasted.”

Ryan tenses up. “I’m not drinking, but whatever.”

And Brendon makes a face at the camera like ‘ _I’m not gonna say anything, but mark my words: Alcohol will be consumed tonight’_ , and he stays quiet regarding that topic, and instead says, “At least you’re not gonna black out. Which is something I plan to do, and it’s not gonna be fun in the morning.”

“Yeah, but who’s driving back?” Vicky snaps, and Brendon tries to contain his laughter when he realizes that he can sleep the entire way back. “Oh. Yeah. Oops. I’ll let you pick the music?”

She grits her teeth as she takes out her phone. “Thanks. Appreciate it.”

He shrugs when Vicky goes on her phone, a silent ‘ _stop talking to me’_ is shared between them, so he goes back to burying his head in Ryan’s neck. “Ryan,” he says, “when we’re older, promise it won’t take you this long to come. I mean, I don’t want it to be _fast_ , but y’know… it’s been 45 minutes, I wanna get drunk already!”

Gabe immediately appears in the frame, like out of thin air, and both Brendon and Ryan look at him, shocked, as he holds up a flask. “Drunk? You want some?”

Brendon holds his hand out, and he straight up downs the contents of whatever was in there. Gabe’s eyebrows raise as Brendon drains it into his mouth, and Brendon smiles sheepishly as he hands it back. “Sorry. I’m always thirsty.”

Gabe looks between the flask and Brendon with a sad expression on his face, before he says, “Wow… alrighty then. Guess I’m gonna have to wait till we get in the limo, thanks a lot.”

“You’re welcome,” Brendon says sincerely, and Vicky looks up from phone to glare at the 3 of them. “How sad,” she hisses at them, “how sad, you have to wait till you’re in the limo, that we’re getting into in 20 minutes. _Some of us_ aren’t so lucky.”

She gets up and storms off to where Travie and Joe are talking to Ramona and Patrick’s sister. Gabe watches her go and says, under his breath, but loud enough for Brendon to Ryan to hear, “The ~~fuck~~ is she talking about? Is that supposed to be some existential stuff?”

“Nah,” Brendon says, “she’s knocked up. Don’t tell her I told you, though.”

The camera zooms in on Gabe’s face as his eyes widen. “ _What_?!”

And he’s about to say some more, but Brendon yells at something behind the camera, “What the hell happened?! Was there a ~~cock ring?~~ Why did it take so long?”

The camera moves, so that it’s filming Patrick and Pete coming their way. They’re still wearing the clothes that they were at the ceremony, except now they look way more disheveled. Pete’s eyeliner is smudged like he’s been crying, his hair is sticking up even though it looks like he’s been trying to smooth it down, and he’s walking with a definitive limp. And Patrick’s neck has a mysterious bruise on it. Brendon blinks at them, and he says, “You guys weren’t trying for subtlety, holy ~~shit~~. Patrick, you wrecked Pete, haha, look at him!”

Pete just sinks into the seat next to Ryan, wincing a little as he does it, and he says slowly, “We… ah, we… We were _enthusiastic_.”

Brendon reaches for a comb inside the jacket of the (leopard print!) suit, and he begins to run it through his hair. “Yeah, clearly. Let me fix this for you.”

The camera zooms back into Gabe’s face, where he’s still frozen with shock, before it zooms back out.

Pete looks like he’s going to protest, but he instead melts into it, and he leans against Ryan (who’s totally being overcrowded, between Brendon still on his lap, but he seems unfazed), as he says, “Whatever. I just need a minute and then I’ll be fine.”

Patrick hands him a water bottle and says with that same pink tint in his cheeks, “Yeah, it was… _yeah_. And Pete kept stopping me so that he could write stuff down, that’s why it took forever.”

“He took notes?” Ryan asks, and Pete laughs as he pulls his phone out to the notes section and reads off, “The way he fills me up, the way that he breaks me down just to build me back up, the way that he reduces me to a sad, pathetic moaning mess of-“

“ _Sad, pathetic moaning mess_?” Brendon asks with a wince, still fixing Pete’s hair, “Damn, I thought you guys were having fun.”

“We did!” Pete argues, “I’m just being extra. It was _good_.”

Patrick, who’s face has now turned a shade much darker than just pink, says loudly, “ _Hey_ , can we, uh, change the subject? Why does Gabe look like someone told him Pluto isn’t a planet anymore?”

\---

GABE: Pluto isn’t a planet anymore?!

\---

“Vicky’s-“ Brendon begins to say, but Ryan’s eyes widen (this is visible even through the sunglasses he’s wearing, the heart shaped pink tint ones), and he clasps his hand over Brendon’s mouth before Brendon can continue to babble. “Vicky… Vicky just said that… uh… she thinks the snake religion is bullshit.”

Gabe nods vigorously and Ryan keeps his hand over Brendon’s mouth as he continues to make stuff up, “Ah… you know, Brendon just… Brendon just, uh…”

He lets go hesitantly and wipes his hand on his pants as Brendon turns his head to blink at him. Pete, Patrick, and Gabe all watch on intently, waiting for Brendon to start screaming, but he just says in a low voice, “George Ryan Ross… that was the single hottest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. I’m _so_ hard right now, feel it.”

And naturally, when Ryan drops his hands into Brendon’s lap, Gabe, Pete, and Patrick walk away. Well, Pete limps away, but same thing.

\---

RYAN: What?! Brendon would have told them, someone had to put a stop to it.

BRENDON: That was so ~~fucking~~ hot. Like… I’m boutta pull a Pete and Patrick and ~~fuck~~ in the bathroom for 50 minutes!

\---

( _The camera pans the hall where the reception is taking place. There is a fountain in the middle of the lobby and the water lights up different colors thanks to different lights inside, there’s a grand piano tucked in the corner, and there’s a spiral staircase that leads upstairs. And the camera zooms in on Ashley, Sisky, and Bill, who are trying to sneak a chair up there. William and Sisky are look out, and Ashley, in all her 6 inch heels glory, is heaving a chair up the staircase. Her hair is loosely tied so that she doesn’t start sweating_ )

“Uh, Ash?” Sisky asks, as he continues to look around for any staff coming their way, “are you sure you don’t want help? That chair looks heavy.”

They look _so_ sus. _Sooooo_ sus. Ashley’s carrying a chair half her size, while the pencil heels on her shoes threaten to snap off, Sisky isn’t necessarily doing a good job at hiding considering his hair is everywhere, there’s camera crew with them (it’s just Tyler, but still), and William’s standing still, having an internal argument with himself about his relationship with Gabe.

“I _got_ it,” she says, as she continues her trudge up the stairs, “Are you suggesting that women can’t do things?!”

“Uh, no,” Sisky says with a wince. And he looks over to William for help, but William’s still standing out, thinking about Gabe. If this were a funnier show, Tyler and Josh would have edited it so that the frame was in black and white, and ‘hello darkness my old friend’ played in the background. But, nevertheless…

“I just wanna help, you look like you’re struggling,” he says, and Ashley shakes her head. “No. I set my mind to this, so I’m gonna do it. Don’t ~~fuck~~ with Halsey.”

She takes a brief break to give Tyler (he’s totally visible in the reflection thanks to the mirrors that line the walls near the staircase) a smug glance.

“I know _Halsey_ doesn’t,” Sisky tries to explain, “but does _Ashley_?”

She pauses again, this time to sigh. She pulls her hair into a tighter ponytail, even though it’s screwing up the curls in the wig, and she rests the chair on the stair so that she can put her hands on her hips. “Adam. I’m fine. I don’t need help. Halsey _or_ Ashley.”

Sisky throws his hands up. “Okay! I’m just trying to help!”

William glances over to them for the first time in a while, and he says, “Can you guys stop? Ash, stop being prideful and let Sisky help you. Sisky, stop pissing her off and stop being annoying. Stop arguing, I’m having a crisis.”

“I’m not being… prideful,” Ashley says, before she drops her shoulders and says, ‘I’m just—ugh, get up here.”

Sisky runs up the stairs and attempts to lift the chair up. But he also fails, and he almost tumbles down the stairs as a result. Ashley laughs a little, and they both grab one side each as they continue to walk up the stairs. William follows with a blank look on his face. “Coast… clear… coast clear, the coast is clear.”

\---

ASHLEY: How I feel about Sisk? I’unno… weird? He’s not my boyfriend, we just hooked up and we’re just best friends. But it’s hard to think ‘best friends’ when he’s ~~eating me out~~ a thousand times better than he did a year ago, and I know that he’s gotten practice with someone else, and I’ve hooked up with… ( _laughs nervously_ ) too many people, but I just… am jealous. I feel jealous, I want Sisky for myself. But I don’t want to be held down and I don’t want to do this, _marriage_ , with my on and off high school sweetheart! I have to let it go! But Sisky… and then he’ll smile at me all lopsided and he’s just the sweet kid who brought me coffee from 7-11 in the morning in homeroom. ( _groans_ ) ~~Fuck~~. I sound straight _and_ annoying.

SISKY: Being Ashley’s boyfriend again? Uh… I mean, I don’t know. She’s famous now, I like being able to post memes on Instagram without any little fans following me and making fun of me for posting so much Pepe.

ASHLEY: Okay, Pepe has to go. I’m _sorry_. But Pepe has to go.

\---

“This chair is so heavy,” he complains, “I’ve carried people out of parties who have weighed less than this,” Sisky says, and Ashley nods as she glances nervously to the cameras, “Yeah, I… yeah. Brooklyn parties… crazy.”

“Before all of this, I should have invited you to some of the parties by the dorms. You’d like them, I think. Lots of weed and philosophical thinking once the music has to be shut off and the keg is gone, it’s kinda your scene. I usually fall asleep, though.”

“I would still come,” Ashley says softly, and they finally get the chair on the upstairs level of the hall. She pulls her hair out of the tie, and she brings it forward as she says, “Just don’t call me Halsey there and no one would know, I’m not that famous.”

But she kinda is. And her album is coming out in 2 days.

“You _are_ ,” he says, “people know me because of you.”

He pauses for a second, and then he says hesitantly, like he doesn’t wanna fuck this up, “And I would never call you Halsey. You’re always Ash to me. Even though your videos get millions of hits, you’re always just Ash to me, with the crazy blue hair.”

It’s an awfully tense moment. A moment that should have been avoided, because Bill is with them, but Bill is sitting at the bottom of the staircase staring into space, and plus, _apparently_ , everyone knew it was gonna happen anyways. Sisky brings a hand up to brush a stray strand of hair away from her face, but she just pulls him closer. She kisses him hard, and shoves her hand into the camera even harder, like she’s not playing. And since Tyler knows not to play with her, the cameras shut off.

\---

( _The party is about to begin- all of the guests are in their seats, chattering away as they eat appetizers. The table that Ashley, Bill, and Sisky are sitting at has the additional chair, but since Gabe and Joe aren’t there, the table doesn’t look too full. They’re sitting with Patrick and Pete’s brothers as well. The door to the room opens, and Joe walks in with a microphone in his hands- he’s the MC. Pete and Patrick really put all of their friends in charge. Gabe, who’s by the DJ booth, presses a button the second the door opens_ )

“Alright, alright!” he says into the microphone, and all of the attention is on him when the room gets dark, and a spotlight shines on him, controlled by an organizer. “To anyone who doesn’t know who I am, my name is Joe, and I’m your MC tonight! I made these plans while I was stoned and now I don’t really know what I’m doing because I kinda have anxiety and my stutter sounds so much louder with a microphone, but I’m hoping that I can wing this!”

Everyone cheers, including William, who seems to be in somewhat of a better mood. And Ashley and Sisky look ecstatic, which is what a quickie in the bathroom would do to a person.

“So, is everyone having a good time tonight?” he asks, and Ashley yells, “ ~~FUCK~~ YEAH MR. TROHMAN!”

It’s also important to note that the drinks that the trio are drinking aren’t virgin. But she’s not that buzzed yet, no one is, not even Brendon, who’s been downing drinks since they got into the limo.

The scene shifts, to everyone lined up just outside the doors that lead to the party room. The flower girls, the bridesmaids, the groomsmen, and Pete and Patrick. As Joe continues to talk, getting the crowd pumped up despite the fact that he keeps stuttering and stumbling over his words, everyone gets ready to walk in. Or, _dance_ in.

“If I trip over my feet, you’ll kill me right then and there, right?” Patrick asks, looking a little nervous, and Pete laughs as he leans over to press a kiss to his cheek. “Sure thing. You’re not gonna trip and fall, though. I got you. We’re walking in and dancing to ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin'', that’s like… your song! You can do that song drunk, and I know that for a fact, because that’s _your song.”_

“If you tripped and fell, that would be the most hilarious ~~shit~~ ever!” Brendon says in the background, but Patrick just flips him off and goes back to his conversation. “I know, but… maybe we should have rehearsed it? I mean-“

He's interrupted by Joe calling the names of the flower girls, and the 4 of them squeal with excitement before Vicky and Ramona help push the doors open for them, and they dance in to something modern and something not decades old- “Chained To The Rhythm” by Katy Perry. Pete takes Patrick's hand in his, and he squeezes it, giving him a reassuring smile.  

Ramona and Travie are next- they grin at each other when their names get called, and they dance in to “Paper Planes” by M.I.A, because that was the only thing they could agree on- it was either that or TLC.

Tyler films this one-

They burst through the doors right when the chorus hits, the ‘ _All I wanna do is_ ’ followed by all of those gun shots and the cash register’s ‘ka-ching’, and the camera zooms in on the shocked expressions on all of Patrick’s relatives faces when they realize all of that is from the music. Ramona and Travie walk in with a strut before dance together to this elaborate dance they made up that corresponds to the music, Ramona’s throwing peace signs at the camera as she dances on the floor at one point, and as the segment of their song comes to a conclusion and they go to their seats, Joe says, “Wow that was… wonderful! Okay, next up- Marissa and Vicky-T!”

Camera A switches to Camera B, and Patrick’s sister, Marissa, grabs Vicky’s hand, they smile at each other, glance back at the remaining people, Pete, Patrick, Brendon, and Ryan, and they dance in to “Burnin’ Up” by Ashlee Simpson.

Camera A- They move their shoulders to the beat and sing together as Ashlee’s sicky sweet voice rings out ‘ _I see diamonds in the sky, touch my hand and I can fly, all this is a mystery, so come on, come on, and dance with me’_ , and they laugh when Ashley, all the way in the corner, yells, “YOU GUYS LOOK SO GOOD! I LOVE THIS SONG!”

“Yeah,” Joe says, “this song is awesome! And Vicky- you’re so sexy! Uh, you too Marissa, but since we’re not dating, y’know… I prefer Vicky.”

The camera zooms in on Vicky, who laughs harder, and blows a kiss to Joe.

“Okay! Next up, we have Ryan and Brendon! Who are walking into- yup, don’t even know why I doubted that.”

Chris Martin and Rihanna’s voices on ‘ _Once upon a time on the same side, once upon a time on the side, in the same game_ ’ are what accompany Ryan and Brendon when they make their grand entrance. And even though this is a breakup song, the beat is super catchy, and it combines their favorite things- Coldplay for Ryan, and Rihanna for Brendon.

They hold hands when they run in, but then Brendon gets on his knees and starts grinding on the dance floor when they get to the center of it as Ryan does this weird thing with his arms, and his whole body kinda just shakes as he’s moved by the power of Chris’s voice. ‘ _And you stole my star, la la la la la la la la…_ ’

William has a hand over his mouth like he can’t believe what he’s watching, Vicky’s doubling over with laughter as she films it on her phone, and Pete and Patrick, who have been peeking in, both flinch at their dance moves.

“See,” Pete says, cringing with second-hand embarrassment, “whatever you do is gonna be way better than Ryan’s seizure.”

And even after Joe says, "Wow! Wow... no words for that! Okay, and now, for the people you've all been waiting for- Mr. Patrick Stump-Wentz and Mr. Pete Wentz-Stump! Yeah!", Patrick laughs. So they dance in like that- Patrick still hysterically laughing at Pete’s horrible joke. On the speakers, Michael Jackson sings ‘ _I took my baby to the doctor with a fever but nothing he found, by the time this hit the street they said she had a breakdown_!’ as Pete dances around Patrick quite horribly. He tries to be like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, and he does the disco moves, while Patrick kinda just shuffles, he’s not drunk enough to let loose, but by the end, they’re both moving in sync with each other, dropping down and making finger guns at each other and they sing at each other ‘ _It’s too high to get over (yeah, yeah!), you’re too low to get under (yeah, yeah!), you’re stuck in the middle (yeah, yeah!), and the pain is thunder!_ ’'

Everyone cheers them on and gets out of their seats when the song fades out, and they engulf each other in huge hugs, before they kiss again, grinning at each other when Joe says, “Can we get another round of applause for them?! Patrick, I didn’t know you had moves like that while you’re still sober! Crazy!”

And then Patrick turns around and narrows his eyes at Joe, before he turns back and grins at Pete. “Woo!”

\---

JOE: I’m scared ~~shitless~~. ( _takes a swing out of a glass_ ) But I know what songs Gabe and Travie plan to play, and let’s just say, if anyone is dying tonight, it’s not me.

BRENDON: ( _laughing in a manner that can only be described ‘evilly’_ ) Oh, Patrick got pissy cause someone made a comment as tame as that? Honey, you’ve got a big storm comin’.

\---

Unlike everyone else who danced on the floor, however, they don’t go to their seats. Instead, they stay on the floor for their first dance. Once it gets quiet, and once the light shines on them, Joe says into the microphone, “So… now we have the first dance! Gabe, you wanna…”

Gabe, who was taking shots with William and his friends, runs back to the DJ station, and gives Patrick a thumbs up when Patrick sends a death glare his way.

Pete holds his hand out, and Patrick takes it just as ‘Sea of Love’ covered by Cat Power (the version that was in Juno) begins to play over the speakers. The strumming begins just as Patrick’s pulled closer, and Pete’s hands fall to Patrick’s waist as Patrick’s arms go around his neck, and they start swaying together. _‘Come with me, my love… to the sea… the sea of love…’_

“I love you,” Patrick says softly, as they continue to dance, “I love you so much, I decided to do this cheesy dance with you.”

“Oh, please,” Pete says, a gentle and warm smile on his face, “you’re acting like you didn’t totally wanna dance, which is a lie. It’s from ~~fuckin~~ ’ Juno, it’s Cat Power, it’s like the best song ever.”

_‘Do you remember when we met?... that’s the day I knew you were my pet… I want to tell you… How much I love you…’_

“I knew you were my _Pete_ ,” Patrick corrects, and Pete laughs as he drops his head into the crook of Patrick’s neck. “See? So cheesy. I hope when we’re old we don’t cringe too hard rewatching this.”

“Older us probably won’t be having as much sex as we are right now, so jokes on them,” Patrick remarks, and Pete playfully gasps, “Are you saying that you’re not gonna ~~fuck~~ me into the mattress anymore when we’re old and gray?”

“Oh my God, I can’t have this conversation with you right now, here, dancing at our _wedding_ in front of all of our family,” Patrick says, and Pete pulls away enough so that Patrick can see the shit-eating grin on his face, “Why? Is it making you hot?”

He laughs again when Patrick gives him a pointed look, but then he goes back to burying his head in Patrick’s neck. “I can’t believe we did it. We actually got _married_ , Ricky. We’re ~~fuckin~~ ’ dancing at our wedding right now.”

“I know,” Patrick whispers, “I know. I’m going to cry, for the millionth time today.”

“No tears,” Pete says, “oh God, no more tears.”

“No more tears,” Patrick says, with tears in his eyes, and he laughs weakly when Pete looks up at him in disbelief. “Oops? I can’t help it I—I love you so much, Pete. I fucking love you so much.”

Pete brings a hand up to wipe Patrick’s tears away, just as the song ends, and he says as everyone begins to cheer, “I love you too, you blubbering idiot.”

They kiss again when the song finishes, laughing and crying together at the impact of everything, the song and Ashley shrieking, “I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH!! PETER-ICK FOREVER! YOU GUYS ARE THE ULTIMATE OTP!”

The lights come back on, and Joe says, “That was lovely! Pete and Patrick, you guys are awesome! Alright- now, let’s get this party started! With… some food! The buffet is open, everyone! Gabe, put on some basic tunes, we’re saving the good stuff for when all of the food is digested so that no one starts puking on the dance floor! Alright, let’s gooooo!”

Gabe presses ‘play’ on a playlist, and then he goes back to sitting with William + company. But, the camera doesn’t focus on them- it focuses on Brendon and Ryan at the bar. Ryan’s downing a bunch of shots- there are 5 lined up, and he just shot back the 3rd.

“That was so ~~fucking~~ boring,” Ryan says, and he kicks the 4 th one back, and he grabs the 5th one, “I wish I could erase that from my memory. If you’re not dancing to Coldplay for your first dance-“ he pauses to down the last one, “then don’t invite me! Jesus Christ!”

Brendon watches on, sipping his martini silently, as Ryan orders some more drinks. He turns back to Brendon and says, “When we get married, we’re dancing to Coldplay.”

\---

BRENDON: OOOOOOOHHH YOU GOT THAT, RIGHT? TELLLLL ME YOU GOT THAT

RYAN: The song will be ‘Yellow’, and I will cry. After that, I don’t care what happens. But- but if I’m gonna dance, it’s gonna be to the most romantic song in the world! ( _undoes his tie_ ) It’s kinda hot in here, isn't it?

BRENDON: And this, my friends, is where slut Ryan begins his journey. It all embarks with the loose tie.

\---

( _ABOUT 40 MINUTES LATER- Everyone is eating food and Pete and Patrick are making their rounds, talking to everyone at the tables. They take quick breaks to jam food into their mouths, before they go back to taking pictures, but Joe grabs the microphone and walks to the dance floor. The music comes to a cease and Ashley smiles wide at the camera)_

“Alright! So, we’re not opening the dance floor just yet,” Joe says, and he looks over to Ashley, “but we _do_ have some music coming up! Ashley, why don’t you come up here?”

Ashley, from her spot at the table, unwraps Sisky’s arm from around her shoulder, and she walks up to where Joe is, surprisingly well considering the amount of drinks that have been going around. “Ashley Frangipane, everybody! Or, as some of you may know her, Halsey! She’s gonna sing a song off her new album, coming out on Monday, just for Pete and Patrick! Alright!”

Everyone claps louder, and from the wedding party table, Ramona yells, “Love you girl! You rock!”

She takes the microphone from Joe’s hands, and she presses her free hand to her heart as she says, “Aw, thanks for that intro, Mr. Trohman! And for passing me in Geometry when I totally deserved to fail! But, uh… actually, we have a little surprise! I’m not gonna sing right now,” she says, and she looks over to Patrick, who, naturally, has concern written all over his face. “Which, I know, Patrick, Mr. Stump, my favorite teacher, is kinda messing up with all of your plans, but don’t worry! I’ll sing later! I just made a little bet with someone, and they’re gonna open the stage for us.”

She looks over to Tyler, who’s standing all the way in the back of the room, banging his head repeatedly against the wall.

Patrick glances over to where Ashley’s looking, and he pursues his lips. Pete just watches on with a worried expression on his face, since he can’t tell who she’s looking at.

“Tyler! Get the ~~fuck~~ over here!” She sing-songs, and then Pete and Patrick both look at Tyler with shocked expressions, when he turns around, with his ukulele in his hands. Tyler looks over to the cameras, and they come closer to him. But not to film him, because Josh just says something to reassure him.

“Hey,” he says, they’re not in the frame because the camera is facing down, “you’re gonna sound great. Promise. If you don’t, we’ll just edit it out and no one will know!”

“Yeah, I know…” Tyler says, and then he sighs. In the background, Ashley says, “It’s gonna be amazing!" and then she giggles as she says, "Guys, I love Tyler’s singing voice so much! It sounds like scraped knees, but… in a good way!”

There’s a little stage area set-up, with the keyboard that Brendon and Ryan are going to perform with, and there’s a microphone stand, so Ashley walks over, her heels clank loudly, like they’re  taunting Tyler, and she grins at Tyler when he walks up to it. She puts the microphone on the stand, and she says as she adjusts it, “Tyler’s our camera man, and he’s totally awesome… sometimes. He also tried to play games with me, which, y’know, is kinda stupid, because you don't play games with me. But nevertheless- Tyler Joseph!”

Ryan, who is, at this point, hammered, says loudly, “Tyler?! Sing?! Huh?!”, and Brendon leans in closer, definitely interested in whatever is about to happen. Even Gabe, who’s at the booth, raises his eyebrows.

“Thanks _so_ much, Ashley. I really appreciate it.” Tyler grits out through his teeth, and Ashley pats his face before she walks away to go back to her seat.

He looks out to his audience- they all blink at him expectantly, probably expecting something amazing. And nothing Tyler does is amazing, or even comparable to Ashley’s abilities. But he’s past the point of no return. He begins to strum idly on the ukulele as he says, “So… hi. I’m Tyler, one half of the Eccentric camera-crew. Uh… well, I’ve only known Pete and Patrick for about 2 years, but… it’s been real… I’m totally not stalling right now… uh, I’m really happy that I got the chance to know them, and I’m really glad that they got together… cause Mikey Way…”

The camera zooms in Pete- he twists his face in disgust, and he mumbles to himself, ‘soul-sucking vampire piece of ~~shit~~ ’

“…that was a mess. And Patrick! You finally got together with Pete! That’s… awesome! Okay, my boyfriend is sending me the signal to hurry up and stop making a fool of myself, so I guess I’ll just…”

He clears his throat, looks over to Ashley, who genuinely smiles at him and mouths ‘you’re gonna be fine!’ and he begins to sing.

 _“Why do you fill me up… buttercup… baby, just to let me down and mess me around,_ ” he begins to [sing](https://youtu.be/3_EZMFMOOZk), and he lightly strums along as he sings the melody. From the start, it’s sounding like a disaster. Mostly because he’s not singing the right lyrics… and also because it’s not even a love song, it’s a sad song. But he sounds good. _Cute_ would be the right word. 

 _“And worst of all, you never come, baby, when you say you will,”_ he sings, Ryan looks unimpressed as he drinks from his glass, but Brendon kinda looks like a proud mother, _“But I love you still, I need you, I need you, more than anyone, darling, more than I have from the start, so fill me up, buttercup, don’t break my heart.”_

After this, he seems to lose his sense of nervousness. He strums a little more intensely, he closes his eyes, he sways with it, and he even stops singing the lyrics all together, he just improvises and starts scatting over the rhythm, smiling as he does it.

He goes back to the lyrics after a little while of that, “ _Waiting for youuuuu, ooooooh, ooohh,_ why _do you fill me up buttercup, baby, just to let me down, you mess me around and then worst of all, you never come, baby, when you say you will, but I love you still! I need you, I need you, more than anyone darling, more than I have from the start… so fill me up… buttercup… don’t break my heart.”_

He finishes the song up with that, playing some chords that signal the end, and he grins when everyone cheers for him, when Ashley gets up on the table and yells, “LOVE YOUUUU TYLER! THAT’S MY CAMERA MAN AND HIS NAME IS TYLER AND HE’S AN AMAZING PERFORMER! SOMEONE GIVE HIM A RECORD DEAL ALREADY! GET EM, EGGHEAD, THAT'S MY ~~MOTHERFUCKIN~~ ' BOY!”, and when Patrick and Pete smile at him, and Patrick gives him the signal of approval- a thumbs up.

Tyler waves as he walks off the dance floor, and sets his ukulele on their table before he excitedly takes the camera from Josh’s hands, and (presumably) kisses him. “I did it!” he says, and Josh says back, “You did! It was so good!” “Yeah, I know!”

\---

TYLER: ( _grinning from ear to ear_ ) Wow! That was- wow! Ashley was right, where the ~~fuck~~ is my ~~fuckin~~ ’ record deal! ( _JOSH: You can tell you’re excited cause that’s when the curse words start coming out_ ) ~~Fuck~~ yeah! ( _JOSH: Would you let me in your band if you got a record deal?)_ ~~Fuck~~ yeah! You be the drummer, I be the ukulele player, and we win a Grammy singing about how stressed out we are ( _JOSH: (laughs) Yeah, in your wildest dreams_ )

\---

After Tyler’s performance, Joe grabbed the microphone from the stand and had a couple of people give speeches- Pete’s mother gave a speech that legitimately made Pete tear up, Patrick’s older brother said some things that Patrick really wishes he didn’t, and one of the flower girls, Pete’s niece, said that it was the best wedding ever, but that was because it was her first wedding. Ramona’s at the end of her speech now- she’s very discretely leaning against the DJ station so that she doesn’t fall over.

“Pete, I’m so incredibly happy for you, and Patrick, welcome to the family! You have to come with us to get tattoos! That’s, like, Wentz initiation! A Morrrisey tattoo! But, um, anyways… yeah, I think that’s all I have. I love you guys, and I know that you’ll last forever! Cheers!” she holds up her nearly empty drink, and everyone drinks to her incredibly drunk but adorable speech.

She stumbles back to the wedding party table, but not before she gives Pete a huge hug, before saying under her breath, “If you ~~fuck~~ this up, I’ll kill you, I don’t care if you’re my older brother. Okay, love you, love you guys!”

Ramona isn’t the only one getting kinda sloppy- Joe is too.

“Aweeeeeeeeeeeeesomeeeeee,” he says, before he points over to Gabe, who’s talking with some of the cousins by the DJ booth, “Gabe! Gabriel! Alright! Let’s get this party started! Dim the lights, put your dancing shoes on, the whole 7 yards! I’m gonna get some coffee and try to sober up! Alright! ARE YOU GUYS READY TO DANCE?!”

As the lights dim and as the AC gets turned on (to keep everyone cool, because the last thing Patrick wants is sweaty pictures), everyone cheers as a response to Joe’s question. Even Patrick, who doesn’t plan to dance.

“I don’t think I heard you guys? I SAID, WHO’S READY TO ~~FUCKING~~ DANCE!”

The camera zooms in on Patrick’s exasperated face, and he nervously glances over to all of the young nieces and nephews, who are laughing at all of the curse words being thrown around.

The rest of the older crowd cheers louder, Ryan especially, and Joe shouts, “OKAY, DJ GABEY-BABY, LET’S GO!”

But instead of playing something upbeat and crazy to get everyone pumped up, Gabe plays something… slower. And in Spanish.

\---

PATRICK: I don’t know if… Gabe got the memo that my family is white? One hundred and ten percent white?

GABE: Oh, no, I know that Patrick’s family is white. And I _also_ know that there are about 0.7 white people songs I can get my grind on to. That’s why I told Travie that I got this- cause I’m gonna play _good_ music. Put your trust in DJ Gabey-Baby, man!

\---

 _“Suavemente, bésame_ ,” is what comes on over the speakers, but everyone who knows the song knows what’s coming up next, so they don’t say anything, they just let the intro run it’s course, “ _Que yo quiero sentir tus labios / Besándome otra vez / Suavemente, bésame / Que yo quiero sentir tus labios / Besándome otra vez”_

Aaaand then the beat kicks in with the trumpets and horns, and that’s when everyone gets on the dance floor- Gabe moves away from the DJ booth to grab William’s hand, he pulls him forward, and he lets his hands fall to William’s waist as William tries to move to the beat. It doesn’t really work, but Gabe tries. Meanwhile, Ashley tries to get Sisky on the floor, but he continues to shake his head no, so she shrugs, and she reaches for Ramona, who _gladly_ takes her hand.

Ryan and Brendon do their own little jumpy dance to it, they’re in their own little world, Ryan’s moving his shoulders and shaking his hips and Brendon’s literally jumping up and down like they’re dancing to house music- Ashley and Ramona have the hang of it, they’re wrapped in each other, giggling as they spin each other around and Ramona even dips her.

“20 bucks says our sister and ~~fuckin~~ ’ _Halsey_ hook up,” Pete’s brother says to Pete, right before him and his girlfriend get on the floor, and Pete watches on with a shocked expression as they grind on each other. “But… isn’t Sisky right there?!” Pete asks Patrick, and yeah, Sisky’s watching on with an expression that is unreadable. Half disbelief, half like he wants to get in on the action too.

“It’s Ashley… I don’t question the logic,” Patrick says, as they continue to watch everyone dance- William struggling to keep up with Gabe’s moves, Ashley and Ramona laughing together, Ryan and Brendon jumping around, and all of their relatives. The little kids have formed a circle and they jump around like Brendon and Ryan are.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna dance? I mean…” Pete says, and then when the ‘ _bésame!_ ” part comes on, Pete says it too, shaking his shoulders a little, grinning even when Patrick says no. “I don’t have rhythm, Pete, and I don’t want to get sloppy, y’know.”

“You can be Bill, I can be Gabe. We even have the huge age-“

“If you say ‘age gap’, I’m gonna kill you,” Patrick says, and he shovels some fried rice into his mouth. “I just want to eat.”

Unfortunately for Patrick, the next song is “Give Me Everything” by Pitbull and co., which _everyone_ knows. Everyone’s that on the dance floor cheers,

“TONIGHT, I WANT ALL OF YOU TONIGHT!” Brendon yells to Ryan, and Ryan yells back, “GIVE ME EVERYTHING TONIGHT! FOR ALL WE KNOW, WE MIGHT NOT GET TOMORROW, LET’S DO IT TONIGHT!”

Over the speakers, ‘ _Don’t care what they say, or what games they play, nothing is enough, ‘til I have your love’_

“Okay,” Pete says, getting up, “I don’t care what you say, we’re dancing to this one.”

‘ _I want you tonight, I want you to stay, I want you tonight’_

Patrick looks up at him reluctantly, and he sighs as he holds his hand out, just as, over the speakers, ‘ _Grab somebody sexy, tell ‘em hey!’_

Pete pulls him out of his seat by the hand, and he whispers to him right before they kiss, “Hey”

\---

PATRICK: ( _shaking his head_ ) If he didn’t say that at our wedding, I would have divorced him. He really… he- ( _shakes his head again_ ) _So_ cheesy.

\---

_(30 MINUTES LATER- Camera pans the dance floor. The song that’s playing right now is ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ by Shakira, and basically everyone is on the dance floor. Ryan’s totally and completely drunk, his shirt is half unbuttoned, and he’s laughing loudly as Brendon shakes his hips to the song. Even Sisky is on the floor now, after Ashley suggested ‘Baby Don’t Dance’ by Mother Mother and yelled into the microphone, “MY SISKY DON’T DANCE!”, and Sisky, William, Ramona, and Ashley are dancing in a circle. Even Joe and Vicky are dancing with each other! Patrick’s off on the side, talking to Pete’s parents. And Pete and Travie are by the DJ booth)_

“Everyone is too buzzed to do the Cha Cha Slide,” Pete says, “people are gonna be slipping over each other and falling over.”

“Yeah,” Travie says, just as he puts it on. Everyone cheers, but even Ashley sits down for it, saying to her dance group, “Yeah, hell no, I’m too drunk for this,”, and Travie grins at Pete. “That’s the point.”

_‘This is something new! The Casper Slide Part 2 featuring the platinum band and this time- we’re gonna get funky!’_

Pete strolls on over to where Patrick is, Patrick’s still talking to Pete’s parents, and he smiles at Patrick as he says in a sweet voice that sounds very insistent,  “Ricky. Let’s _go_.”

Patrick looks over to the dance floor- almost everyone is on the floor, and they’re all clapping their hands to ‘ _everybody clap your hands! Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap your hands’_ , even Ashley, who just went back to her seat. And surprisingly, Pete doesn’t even have to coax him into it, Patrick just says to Pete’s parents, “I’ll be back as soon as the song is done.”

“Yay!” Pete says, and he takes Patrick’s hand in his as he practically skips to the dance floor. Brendon’s dancing with a drink in his hands (this didn’t go so well with the clapping of his hands so much), and he shrieks when he sees Patrick, “ ~~Fucking~~ finally! It’s your wedding, you should be having fun!”

_‘Alright now, we gonna do the basic step. To the left. Take it back now y’all. One hop this time!’_

The camera zooms in on Ryan, who took a sharp right at the ' _to the left'_ , and stumbled over his own shoes. Vicky catches him, and she laughs with him as they try it again- ‘ _Right foot, let’s stomp! Left foot, let’s stomp! Cha cha real smooth. Now turn it out’_

The camera then focuses on Ashley, Ramona, William, and Sisky, who are mostly watching everyone else, and following a second later, almost like a lag. _‘Now it’s time to get funky!’_

And things are relatively normal, despite the stumbling that comes with all of those directions coming out of nowhere, until – ‘ _Right foot, two stomps! Left foot, two stomps! Hands on your knees, hands on your knees!’_

Brendon does this whole elaborate grinding thing on Ryan as he puts his hands on his knees, and Ryan only encourages it when he rolls his hips over Brendon’s ass, and Patrick whips his head around to glance into the camera.

\---

PATRICK: They turned into something as innocent as the ~~fuckin~~ ’ Cha Cha Slide into… ( _buries his head in his hands_ ) _that_.

\---

And then it goes downhill from there, because after _‘Freeze! Everybody clap your hands!_ ’ and everyone claps their hands again, the next section had Patrick almost in tears- _‘How low can you go? Can you go down low? All the way to the floor? How low can you go?’_

Ryan is the one who grinds on Brendon this time, which isn’t like Ryan at all, Brendon looks shocked, and over where Ashley and Sisky are, Ashley gets on her knees and leans back on Sisky, throwing her hands up and running them through the wig. _‘Can you bring it to the top? Like you never, never stop_?’ has William and Gabe making out with each other, and they fall into a chair so that they can make out in peace, and Pete and Patrick just glance at each other nervously as they hop on the beat to ‘ _One hop!_ ’

_‘Right foot, let’s stomp! Left foot, let’s stomp! Charlie Brown! Hop it out now!’_

In an instant, Ryan immediately falls to his knees, and he screams, “COLDPLAY!” so loud that Trravie pauses from doing the Charlie Brown to pull him up, and carry him to a seat before he gets stepped on.

\---

RYAN: _(singing the lyrics to “Charlie Brown” by Coldplay off key and quite horribly)_ STOOOOOLEE A KEY! TOOK A CAR DOWNTOWN WHERE THE LOST BOYS MEET, TOOK A CAR DOWNTOWN AND TOOK WHAT THEY OFFERED ME!

\---

The song finishes with everyone cheering and laughing as they hug each other, everyone except Ryan, who’s sitting at the table with a glass of water in his hands. Travie pats his shoulder, and then gets back on the floor, and Ryan takes a sip as he says under his breath, “I love this Coldplay song… _He heard you could see your future… inside a glass of water… the ripples and the rhythms…_ ”

And then Patrick tries to make a beeline back to his seat, but Pete grabs him by the waist and practically purrs, “Patrick, babe, come on. _Dance with me._ ”

And so, Patrick does. The next couple of songs are tame- there’s more Pitbull with ‘Hotel Room Service’ that has Ramona and Ashley scream-singing at each other ‘ _Forget about your boyfriend and meet me at the hotel room_ ’, and they play 'Army of One' by Coldplay (the break-down part of the song), which caused Ryan and Brendon to run to the bathrooms to have sex after some of the dance moves that Ryan pulled out ( _"Another me comes out when I'm drunk and Coldplay plays... I can't help it"_ )

Gabe and Travie play ‘Temperature’ by Sean Paul, and Joe points to himself and then to Vicky at the lyric ‘ _I can be the papa, you can be the mom, oh oh!’_ , and Patrick looks at them confused, Pete and Patrick sing at each other passionately, ‘ _I even had her in the shower, it wasn’t me!_ ’ for ‘It Wasn’t Me’ by Shaggy, and Brendon gets back on the floor for the Fergalicious rap- ‘ _All the time I turn around brother's gather round always looking at me up and down looking at my uh!’_

Even Tyler and Josh drop the cameras for a song or two- the footage of Tyler and Josh dancing with everyone else, they’re not grinding on each other because they’re not drunk, but there’s definitely _bodily_ _contact_ on _‘Bring me down, break it down, in the hot, hot desert, this is where I wanna be’_ (it’s a Grouplove song, it’s so typical of them), is from Ashley’s phone, and the snapchat caption is- ‘this is so fucking hotttttt #JosherIsLife #PreorderBadlandsonItunes’

But the peace doesn’t last for too long. Gabe is over by the DJ booth, grinning like he’s about to pull the world’s best practical joke, and his eyes are on William- William, who’s currently sitting with Sisky at the table, trying to catch his breath.

“We’re gonna throw it back a little,” Gabe says into the microphone, and Patrick perks up, because 80s music is where it’s at for him, but the song he plays isn’t Patrick’s taste at all- ‘Caress Me Down’ by Sublime.

“Isn’t this… like…” Pete begins to say, but the opening lyrics pretty much say it for him- _‘Mucho gusto, me llamo Bradley, I’m hornier than Ron Jeremy’_

Patrick nods, but he goes with a flow a little, bouncing on his toes and moving his shoulders to the beat, although he has his eyes trained on Gabe- Gabe, who still has the microphone in his hands, and Gabe who’s bringing William on the dance floor. William looks a little confused, and a little more confused at _‘-and I took that trip, and then she pulled out my mushroom tip, and when it came out, it went drip, drip, drip’_

Ryan and Brendon are making out again, but even Brendon looks up for that one part and raises his eyebrows.

\---

BRENDON: Damn… I have to give it to him... this is pretty good. But it will not, WILL NOT, compare to ' ~~Fuck~~ 'Him' Gently'! Mark my words! ~~Shit~~ , I have to pee, B-R-B

\---

Vicky, Joe, and Travie watch on as they dance with horrified expressions when Gabe begins to sing into the microphone to Bill, _‘And it went – uuuhhhhh, and then Bill caress me down – uuuuhhhh, and that’s that lovin’ sound- it went uuuhhhh, and then Bill caress me down – uuuhhhh, and that’s that lovin’ sound’_

“Oh, _fuck_ no,” Patrick says, shaking his head, and he races over to where Gabe and William are- William is laughing hysterical as Gabe continues to sing to him with ease, ‘ _When I kiss Bill, he makes me feel horny, cause I’m the type of lover with the sensitivity, when he, kiss my neck and tickle me fancy, the right kind of lover on a Sunday morning’_

Ashley has one hand over her mouth, and she listens on in awe, laughing a little as Sisky looks on, a little disturbed. William is having the time of his life, though, he’s dancing along to the song as Gabe holds his hand with his free one, and he sings _‘En el otro lado, es donde vivi, con mi’hijito, que se llama Bilvy,_ but before he can get to the next lyrics, Patrick rips the microphone from Gabe’s hands, and glares at him hard, as he wordlessly sets the microphone on the nearest table.

Gabe just laughs, glancing over and grinning at Patrick before he continues to sing to Bill, without the added benefit of the microphone. And William still enjoys it all the same, even though he doesn’t really understand the lyrics that are in Spanish, and he sways his hips to the beat when Gabe gets behind him and dances on him.

Patrick returns back to Pete, and he winces as, “I just hope no one can translate it,” but Pete looks doubtful as he sighs, “I don’t think people need a translator for ‘Uhhhhhh, and the girl caress me down’ but… let’s have hope!”

“Should I tell him to change the song?” Patrick asks, concerned, and Pete shakes his head as he takes Patrick’s hands in his, “Nah, let’s just dance. It’s not much worse than ‘It Wasn’t Me’, is it?”

It is.

After the chorus hits again, Gabe’s voice gets magnified once more- _‘Me gusta mi reggae, me gusta punk rock, but the thing I like the most ~~is my boyfriend Bill’s cock~~ ’_

“BIG MOOD!” Brendon shouts from across the room, “JUST… NOT BILL’S THOUGH!”

 _‘Ponga la nalga en la aire if you know who you are, ponga la nalga en la aire y empieza gritar!’_ Gabe sings, and he winks over at Patrick, who’s coming towards him, before he sings with more passion to William, who’s grinning ear to ear, _‘Don’t be scared, I’m your papi, take your panties and send them to me, levanta, levanta, tienes que gritar, levanta, levanta, tienes que bailar’_

Patrick’s about two steps away from him, “GABE, ARE YOU-“ and Gabe just bounces and starts running away, running in circles around the dance floor as he sings the rest of the chorus. And Patrick, who has no energy to chase around a drunk Gabe, just gives up, and heads for the bar.  He downs a couple of shots in a very Ryan Ross fashion as Gabe says, right after the song ends, “SOY EL PAPI CHULO DE BILL Y ME ENCANTA SU CULO!”

\---

GABE: It doesn’t translate well into English, but… _(starts laughing)_ I’m William’s daddy and I love his ass? 

\---

Gabe hands the microphone to Joe when William whispers something in his ear, and he says, “See ya!” as William pulls him in the direction of the balconies, probably to make out under the stars, or something. And now, Joe’s left with an angry Patrick, and the DJ gone. Luckily, Travie notices, and quickly switches the music over to something tame- ‘Ignition’ by R. Kelly.

But the wedding needs to be saved- so, Joe goes to Ashley.

“Hey, Ashley? Do you want to sing your song after this song finishes?” Joe asks, and he has to yell to be heard over the music. “You’re the only person who can save the reception. And Ryan and Brendon are too wasted to sing right now.”

The camera zooms in on Brendon and Ryan who are dancing with Vicky- they look far too occupied with trying to stay upright to focus on performing. The camera goes back to Ashley, who looks around nervously. “Now? But William isn’t here.”

“You don’t have to go…” Joe says, and he turns his head to glance over at Patrick, who’s ranting wildly to Pete as he drinks, some of it splashes as he throws his hands up, _“I’m gonna kill that ~~motherfucker~~ , Gabe thinks he’s so slick, but-“_ and Joe winces when he turns back to Ashley, “but… it would be preferable. Why? Are you too drunk?”

She shakes her head, “I’m a professional. Kinda. Okay, yeah, let’s- let’s do it.”

But she still looks around nervously, even more so when she glances at Sisky.

\---

ASHLEY: ( _slurring over her words a little, but she’s trying to keep it together)_ Suddenly, I regret choosing ‘Roman Holiday’ to sing. It’s about Sisky, and—y’know, it’s, it’s, um, _different_ when he’s not in front of my face! And William isn’t even here to give me drunk and tired reassuring smiles! _(takes a deep breath and starts talking to herself in the reflection in the camera)_ Keep it together, bitch! No man is worth stressing over! You can do it!

\---

When the song ends, Joe tells Travie to cut the music, and when he does, everyone boos.

Ashley looks around at everyone booing, and that does nothing but add to her nervousness. She adjusts the microphone by the set-up, and she takes a drink of water as Joe says, “Wait, no, don’t boo! The music is gonna come back on! But we have a couple of things to do first- we have Ashley singing a song from her new album, Pete’s gonna throw a bouquet cause he’s the bride-“

Pete, who’s walking back to his table, makes a 180 degree turn, and he says, “What?! I’m not the bride! I don’t even have a bouquet!”

Vicky holds up her bouquet of blue roses that she was holding, and she tosses them over to Pete. He catches it, although reluctantly, and she yells at him, “Now you do!”

“-and we have to cut the cake!” Joe says, and he’s about to turn the attention over to Ashley, who’s pacing back in forth between 5 tiles on the dance floor, but then Brendon shouts, “WAIT, ME AND RYAN TOO, RIGHT?”

Joe takes a deep breath, almost like he needs some air to clear his head, and then he turns to where Brendon is patiently waiting for an answer, and he says, “Uh, yeah! After the cake, promise!”

Brendon shrieks with happiness… and then he gets up to pee again.

\---

_(William and Gabe are on the balcony- but they’re surprisingly not making out. This is happening at the same time as Joe announcing the upcoming events at the receptions. The couple are standing up, right by the edge of the balcony rail, and William is clearly nervous)_

“I’m drunk,” William says, “God, I’m so ~~fucking~~ drunk right now.”

“Yeah, me too,” Gabe says, with his eyebrows furrowed, “listen, did you not like that? I thought you did, but sorry… if you didn’t. I’m drunk, I do stupid things, I-“

“No,” William cries, and he tugs his long hair in distress, “no, I loved it, it was funny, _I promise_ , I’m not upset about that. I- ~~fuck~~ , I don’t know what I’m doing right now.”

Gabe just looks super concerned. “About what? Bilvy, come, let’s sit.”

“About us,” William says, and when he looks to Gabe, he has tears in his eyes. “I don’t know how I feel about us anymore. I think we should break up.”

And even though William is the nervous and shaky one, and even though it’s William who looks like he’s on the verge of throwing up, he’s not the one to puke.

It’s Gabe.

All over William’s shoes.

\---

( _At the same time as Gabe’s puking- Ashley’s standing at the microphone, and her hands visibly shake as she grips the microphone stand. And Sisky gives her a small smile and a wave, a ‘I support you and you’re awesome!’ in an action, but it does nothing to make her feel better)_

“Okay…” she says in the microphone, steadying her own self for a moment, before she looks out, and gives her audience a huge, fake smile, although it looks a little more genuine when she looks at Pete and Patrick. “I have a speech prepared, so-“

She takes out her phone, but she doesn’t even really glance at it- “Patrick and Mr. Wentz- First, I want to say congratulations. I, um, I remember, sitting in your Music Theory class last year, Mr. Stump, trying to explain the um-“ she laughs a little at the memory, this is genuine too, “the, um, concept of O.T.P, one true pairing. And even though I said another ship at the time, that ship has long sunken, and- just, you guys are totally my one true pairing. And secondly…”

She takes a deep breath, and closes her eyes for a moment, before she gets back to it, “ _And secondly_ , I want to say thank you. Patrick aka Mr. Stump, even though I guess I should start calling you Mr. Stump-Wentz, you changed my ~~fuckin~~ ’ life by teaching me how to use GarageBand. I mean, most people find your class kinda useless-“

The camera zooms in on Patrick’s expression- he winces a little.

“-but I’m glad I didn’t fall asleep that day, because I used GarageBand to write my songs on, it’s what I used for ‘Ghost’, it’s what I used for this song before I had it done professionally, and… without you, I wouldn’t be here! And Mr. Wentz, thanks for making Emo Time Trademark an actual club, because you always looked over my lyrics and poems and validated me, and this song, actually, I wrote in your club, and so… I just, um, I just thought it was fitting? Yeah… um…”

She puts her phone away back into her bra, and then she says, quickly like she wants to get it over with, she doesn’t glance at Sisky at all, “This is a song about love, and about being in love, and the timing never being right, but you just, uh, you just… it’s not really a love song, y’know, but it… you’re with someone and you know it’s not forever, and it’s someone old, but it’s about just being in the moment with them. Yeah. Okay, Mr. McCoy, let’s go.”

And the instrumental begins to play.

\---

_(Camera pans the men’s bathroom at the hall- the fancy urinals (yeah, they’re fancy), the large mirrors, and then it lands on William and Gabe. William’s got his shoes under the sink, and Gabe is rinsing his mouth. They’re standing a sink apart)_

Gabe cups some water in his hands before he brings it to his mouth, swishes it around a little, and spits it back out. “Sorry I puked on your shoes.”

William looks up from dabbing his shoes with paper towels- they’re absolutely soaked, and they look like they’ve been through hell and back, but William looks worse. His hair sticks to his face thanks to sweat, his face is flushed red because of the alcohol, etc. “It’s fine. I guess I deserved it.”

He washes his hands, splashes water on his face, does everything in his power to avoid Gabe’s eyes, but after he dries his face and combs through his hair, he doesn’t really have much of a choice. Gabe’s sitting on the floor in a fancy bathroom, yeah, but still a _bathroom_. William stays standing, he leans against the sinks, and he sighs when he hears Gabe’s voice.

“I don’t get it,” Gabe says, “like… _why_? Are you sure it wasn’t the song?”

The men’s bathroom is super close to the room where Pete and Patrick are holding the reception- Ashley’s voice travels, and even the microphones can pick up on _‘Cause I remember when my father put his fist through the wall that separated the dining room, and I remember the fear in your eyes the very first time we snuck into the city pool’_

“It _was_ the song, but it wasn’t-“ he groans, a sober William is super smart but a drunk William is a big mess. “I miss _that_. I miss, just, just, having fun! I miss having that with you, now it just feels like we, like we, like we see each other once a month for 2 days, and it’s so amazing, but then you leave, and we don’t see each other, and I just-“

“You know I don’t care,” Gabe says, “I’m too busy working and shit to do things like go out on dates, and have sex all the time, and-“

“That’s the point!” William says louder, “I care! You deserve someone that isn’t a thousand miles away always calling you to rant about… about _things_! I’m ~~fucking~~ holding you back and I don’t even- I’m not worth it.”

“Alright, don’t do that self-deprecating ~~bullshit~~ ,” Gabe says, and William laughs a humorless laugh- “That’s what you get when you date a teenager!”

_‘And we know that we’re headstrong, and our heart’s gone, and the timing’s never right, but for now let’s get away, on a Roman holiday’_

“Is there someone else?” Gabe asks, and William throws his head back and runs his hands over his face. “No, _no_ , there isn’t someone else! Can you just listen to me? I love you Gabe, I love you but I’m too- you deserve who understands you. Who isn’t miles away. Someone who isn’t, isn’t, y’know, isn’t only good for sex and lives in another ~~fucking~~ state, and-“

“Who said that?” Gabe gets up from his spot on the floor, and he says, with edge of anger that makes William roll his eyes, “I don’t think you’re only good for sex, I wouldn’t be dating you still if I thought that, I’m not ~~fuckin~~ ’ stupid.”

“I know!” William yells, “I know you’re not, but you can’t deny that- that you can’t get some other pasty gay guy in Chicago, who’s actually your own age, who can actually be with you, to date you!”

They’re interrupted briefly by Brendon, who walks through the door. He looks between William and Gabe, who both are in defense mode, and he just shrugs. “Don’t mind me, I want to fix my hair.”

He stumbles over to the mirror, and he giggles at his reflection. “You’re so _hot_!”

\---

BRENDON: What? I had to fix my hair.

\---

“So it’s the age thing?” Gabe asks instead, “I didn’t know it bothered you.”

“It’s _not_ , it’s _not_ the age thing, it- can you ~~fucking~~ listen to me? I love you! And I don’t want to break up with you, but I’m just- how long are we going to do this, you know, how long are we gonna do this bullshit taking the 12 hour train just to kiss and say goodbye a day later, how many more Skype calls am I going to sleep through because I’m too busy during the day studying and I'm tired when I get home? You deserve someone, someone better than me!”

“I think what he’s trying to say,” Brendon says, to the mirror, slurring over a couple of words, “is that he’s insecure, and that he doesn’t know why you, a super hot, a _suuuuuper_ hot guy, would stay with someone like him if you can get another William right here in Chicago, a William who is your own age, a William who’s always there for your convenience, and so on. He doesn’t know why you still want to stay with him, maybe cause he thinks that you love him because you love your history, I dunno why cause it was just you guys sneaking around the whole ~~fucking~~ year, or maybe it’s because he thinks that you love him because he’s young and hot.”

Gabe and William blink at him.

“Oh, I was outside the door listening in cause I love drama.”

He sighs, and puts his comb back in his suit, before he stumbles back towards the door, “Guys, I’m so ~~fucking~~ hammered I can’t walk in a straight line and even I know what’s happening, you guys are stupid as ~~shit~~. Bye!”

And then the door closes.

William looks sheepishly at the floor. “Um… what he said.”

_‘Feet first, don’t fall, we’ll be running again, keep close, stand tall’_

“Are you serious?” Gabe asks, “You think I don’t love you?”

William shrugs. “That’s not the only thing, it’s- it’s more than that.”

“William,” Gabe laughs a little, just at the whole situation, and Bill gives him a pointed look back, a ‘don’t laugh at me’ kind of look, “I love you. I don’t sing ‘Caress Me Down’ to people I don’t love, I wouldn’t put myself through all of this for someone I didn’t love, and no, don’t say ~~shit~~ like ‘I shouldn’t put myself through it’, because I don’t care. I would do it for you. You’re not my dumb-but-actually-smart twink boyfriend that I keep around when I want ~~my dick sucked.~~ ”

“How romantic,” William mumbles, and Gabe laughs louder, “Yeah! I’m not- I’m not Pete ‘throw around a bunch of references and put my heart on line’ Wentz but… I do love you, Bilvy. But if you really want to break up… I mean, I should have been the one to suggest it. Not the other way around. If anything, I’m holding _you_ back. You deserve to experience your 20s, ya know, they say that relationships that start in high school never last.”

“No,” William shakes his head, “no, you don’t hold me back. I just, I just really miss you. You know? But no… no, I love you, I like that we… I mean, I… don’t really know what I’m saying right now. I love you, like, so much, I don’t care about experiencing anyone else.”

“Okay,” Gabe says, and William nods. “Yeah…”

In the background, Ashley’s song ends, and there is some distant cheering coming from the room.

“Do you want to talk about it tomorrow? When we’re not… y’know… drunk?” Gabe asks, and William nods. “Yeah. I can’t feel my face.”

He laughs a little, and then he pulls Gabe closer and kisses him gently. “But I love you. Even when you smell like puke.”

They walk around out of the bathroom after that, William tries to put his shoes back on, but they were far too gross. So, he just throws them out.

\---

WILLIAM: _(drinking something fruity_ ) Yeahhhh, I’m feeling a little better about the Gabe thing, but I think we should talk about it again when I’m not being overwhelmed by the smell of puke. Ugh. That was gross.

\---

_(At the same time as Gabe and William fighting in the bathroom- Ashley finishes singing the song, and she smiles out to her audience, but then she darts out of the room as soon as Joe announced that they were going to throw the bouquet now. Pete still looks unamused, but he gets up anyways. The camera man (Josh) drops the cameras, and goes out to follow Ashley, since they’re friends and he wants to make sure she’s alright, but they walk out at the same time as Tyler, Gabe, and William do)_

“Hey,” William says to Ashley, as he walks out of the bathroom, still barefoot, “You good? You look like… you just walked into Gabe and I having a skype call.”

Ashley is unusually quiet, and she shrugs. “Nervous. Too hot in that room, and then _Sisky_ , and… you and Gabe go, I’ll just get some fresh air.”

She glances over to the camera in Tyler’s hand and she narrows her eyes as she says, “ _Alone_ ,” but then Josh comes up from behind them and says, “Do you want me to stay with you? No cameras or anything- I’m good at talking people off the ledge. And I can play bodyguard in case anyone tries to bother you.”

“No one is jumping off ledges,” Ashley says, quickly, “I’m just a little… overwhelmed. But yeah- let’s go.”

And so, Ashley and Josh go out to get some air. And Tyler, Gabe, and William go back into the room, just as Pete’s walking over to where Joe is. “If we weren’t friends, I would murder you right now.” Pete says to Joe, with the bouquet in his hands, and Joe laughs nervously, “Well… we _are_ friends! So, we’re good! Okay, laaaaadies, and, er, anyone who wants to come up, Pete’s gonna throw the bouquet!”

He adds ‘anyone who wants to come up’ because Brendon makes his way over to the dance floor too. He waves to the cameras, and he crosses his fingers for good luck. Ryan’s off on the side, and he’s crossing his fingers too, although, judging by his facial expression, it’s for Brendon _not_ to get it. Vicky’s in this mix too, although she’s all the way in the back, so that she doesn’t get trampled by Brendon in a case where Brendon tries to pry it out of someone’s hands.

Patrick watches on, and he says to no one in particular, when Pete turns around, “Wow, Pete’s ass looks so good right now…”

But luckily for all of the girls, Brendon doesn’t have to pry the bouquet out of anyone’s hands. When Pete throws it, it falls into Brendon’s hands so easily, that Brendon looks kind of confused, and it takes him a good couple of seconds before he throws his hands in the air and screams, “YESSSSSSSSSSS! RYAN, BITCH, GET THE RING READY!”

Brendon runs back to his seat and he shakes Ryan’s shoulders and says, “Ryan! I got it!” and Ryan looks up to him with his glazed over eyes says, “Oh… yay…!”

\---

RYAN: I… wouldn’t be opposed to marriage… I mean, I’m saving myself for Chris Martin, duh, but I wouldn’t… hate being married to Brendon? Pete was right… we’re kinda always together and he always makes me laugh even when he’s annoying… just don’t tell him I told you this because then he’s gonna start booking halls and stuff… oh, speaking of love, Chris Martin-

VICKY: It’s alright, I don’t need a bouquet to tell me when to get married. And it’s my bouquet anyways, so Brendon ended up having to give it back ( _waves the bouquet in the camera_ ) So, who’s the real winner? ( _TYLER: So, how’s it been, dealing with everyone being drunk_?) Kinda fun actually? They’re all so sloppy and they’re not gonna remember anything, but I will, and that thought is the only thing keeping me going. ( _takes a sip out of her glass_ ) Coke. Not Rum and Coke… just coke.

\---

Pete goes to retire to his seat, but Joe doesn’t let him off so easily- “Wait, no, guys, come back! We’re gonna cut the cake now! And Brendon and Ryan have to sing their song, and- Vicky, I’m too drunk, you do this for me.”

He hands the microphone over to Vicky and then he slumps down into a seat. Vicky blinks at him, blinks at the camera, and then gets up. “Uh… alright! Hi guys, I’m Vicky-T! Pete and Patrick, let’s go, hurry up, we don’t have time to waste, Brendon and Ryan, get your ~~shit~~ together, get the keyboard set up, everyone wants to get back on the floor and we only have an hour left, let’s _go_.”

Vicky clearly gets things moving, because no one dares to not listen to her. Pete and Patrick quickly get to where the cake is, it’s was brought up while Ashley was singing her song, and Brendon and Ryan drunkenly try to set up the keyboard in the corner of the room. All the way in the back, Josh peeks his head in the room, and motions for Sisky to come with him, and so, when Sisky gets out of his seat, Josh comes back into the room.

The cake is a 3 layer chocolate cake, and on the top of the cake, is one little figurine sitting at a piano, and another little figurine sitting at a desk with a book in its hand. They’re both in tuxes, and Pete and Patrick laugh when they see them- “Hey, it’s us!” Patrick says, “that’s so cool, I didn’t know they were gonna do that!”

Over the speakers, Travie plays some Kanye West for Patrick, which only improves his mood even more. ‘Touch The Sky’ is their soundtrack as they smile at each other and cut the cake together, and everyone who’s left, the parents with young kids left since it’s around 11pm (and 'Caress Me Down' kinda chased them away) cheers when Pete smears a little of the frosting on Patrick’s nose, and then they look away when Pete leans in to lick it off. “I want to smear this frosting all over your face and lick it off. No, all over your _body_ , you’re my hot chocolate Pillsbury dough boy. In a good way!” Pete says to him, and Patrick pats his face lovingly. “Alright, babe. Whatever you say.”

They feed each other a bite each of the cake with the fudge and cookie filling, they pose for the pictures together, and just as Pete continues to elaborate on his point to Patrick, “So while I’m desperately sucking your-“

“Testingggggggggggg,” Brendon says into the microphone, and the focus goes over to Brendon and Ryan, in the corner of the room. As the slices of cake begins to get distributed, Brendon says, “So… Ryan and I have prepared a special song for Pete and Patrick! We didn’t write it but we, er… arranged it, so that it would fit this occasion. Right, Ryan?”

Ryan makes a noise of agreement into the microphone, but that’s pretty much it. Brendon laughs, and he continues, “So… yeah! Sorry if we sound gross, we’re kinda super duper hammered. Patrick, this is for you! A message from us, about you… and a suggestion for what you and Pete should do. Together. Tonight. Thanks for making me not your maid of honor, by the way, you guys are fake as ~~fuck~~.”

The camera zooms in Ramona’s face- she looks at Brendon with an expression that looks exactly like that meme of the white guy blinking (the Dexter lookalike).

The spotlight goes on the two of them, and the sequins on Brendon’s leopard print **_(leopard print_** ) suit shine and cause little rainbows to appear on every surface that’s within 10 feet of them. He looks like he’s on fire, if that fire was rainbow colored with hints of leopard thrown in. And Ryan’s just kinda there.

And normally Patrick would already be freaking out because Brendon singing a revenge piece, but he’s buzzed, and he’s already stressed out far too many times for the day, so he kinda just sits back and enjoys his cake. Pete wraps an arm around his shoulder and he leans into the touch, as Brendon begins to [sing](https://youtu.be/XvrUI201X7g), flawlessly despite the fact that he’s drunk, because Brendon can do that, perform while being totally intoxicated, _‘You don’t always have to ~~fuck~~ him hard…’_

Patrick takes another bite out of his cake, and he hums along as Ryan sings the next part, a little wobbly and out of tune, _‘In fact sometimes it’s not right to do,’_

Pete nods very seriously. “True. But it’s so hot…”

 _‘Sometimes you got to make some love…’_ Brendon sings, so sweetly, and Ryan sings, a lot less sweetly, _‘and ~~fuckin~~ ’ give him some smooches too! _Jeez! It’s just mean not to!'

They sing this part together- _‘Sometimes, you’ve got squeeze! Sometimes… you’ve got to say please! Sometimes you got to say – hey!’_

Brendon takes a brief break to improvise on the piano, and he looks up to see if Patrick has steam coming out of his ears. But Patrick’s dancing to it in his seat. And everyone who’s there, they don’t even seem that upset, since all of the kids are gone. Pete’s parents look a little uncomfortable, but besides that? Everyone seems to like it…

Which was the total opposite of what Brendon wanted, which was chaos and drama. But nevertheless, he has a song to finish, so goes back into the chorus with Ryan singing backup, gentle ‘ _oohs’_ and ‘ _ahhs’_

_'I’m gonna ~~fuck~~ you softly… I’m gonna screw you gently, I’m gonna hump you sweetly, I’m gonna ball you discreetly! And then you say hey I brought you flowers, and then you say wait a minute Pe-ete, I think I’ve got lasagna in my teeth, could you get it out for me?’_

Patrick sings this part with them- _‘That’s ~~fuckin~~ ’ teamwork!’_

The rest of the song goes swimmingly, and even though that wasn’t the point, Brendon accepts Patrick’s hug when he goes over there, and he laughs as Patrick says to him, “Just be thankful I find this funny because if I didn’t, I would fire you!”, and then it’s Patrick’s turn to laugh when Brendon looks at him, horrified. Ryan just yells, “Can we turn the music back on?! I wanna dance!”

“Good question, Ryan!” Vicky says, coming back on the dance floor, “We can turn the music back on! Travie? Gabe?”

Gabe and Travie, who are at the DJ booth, put the music back on- ‘Gasolina’ by Daddy Yankee.

And even Sisky and Ashley, who were talking outside, come back in to dance as soon as they hear it- she’s in a better mood, or at least that’s what we can infer since she grabs Ramona and William’s hands and starts to dance with them too. And Patrick doesn’t have to be asked to dance either, he’s the one who drags Pete on the floor, and they dance with their siblings. Gabe scream-sings the lyrics with Travie and Joe and Vicky, and he points to the camera and then back at himself at ‘ _They call me papi chulo’_

The last remaining 45 minutes are just a blur of dancing and drinking, when ‘Tonight (I’m Fuckin You’ by Enrique Iglesias comes on, Patrick shows no restraints when he sings loudly and points at Pete at _‘Nobody’s ever made me feel the way that you do, you know my motivation, given my reputation, please excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude… BUT TONIGHT I’M ~~FUCKING~~ YOU!_ ’ And Brendon yells “GENTLY!” every time just as a little homage to himself, Travie plays a remix of one of Ashley’s songs (the Arty remix of  ‘Hurricane’) just as a joke, and she laughs hysterically as she jumps up and down with William and Sisky to it, and all of Pete’s family screams when the west Indian soca classic ‘Turn Me On’ by Kevin Lyttle comes on.

And although that would have been the perfect song to end the night with, Vicky says right after that song, “Alright! We have one more song left tonight! Hit it, Gabe!”

‘A Thousand Miles’ by Vanessa Carlton beings to blare through the speakers- the piano melody itself causes everyone under 30 (oh, and Pete) to shriek, Brendon especially, and everyone sings loudly and drunkenly, _‘MAKING MY WAY DOWNTOWN, WALKING FAST, FACES PASS, AND I’M HOME-BOUND! STARING BLANKLY AHEAD, JUST MAKING MY WAY, MAKING A WAY, THROUGH THE CROWD’_

Ryan’s body physically shakes in correlation with the violins before he screams,  _‘AND I NEED YOU. AND I MISS YOU! AND NOW I WONDER…’_

And no one is even dancing as much as they are just singing the lyrics and laughing together- _‘IF I COULD FALL INTO THE SKY, DO YOU THINK TIME WOULD PASS ME BY? ‘CAUSE YOU KNOW I’D WALK A THOUSAND MILES IF I COULD JUST SEE YOU… TONIGHT!’_

This continues on for the rest of the song, and when it’s done, everyone cheers and yells "AFTER PARTY AT THE HOTEL! AFTER PARTY AT THE HOTEL!"

Pete and Patrick look out at all of their family and relatives, and they grin at each other as they kiss once more. It’s midnight, and their wedding day is finally, finally, _finally_ done.

\---

_(20 minutes later- everyone (excluding William, Sisky, and Ashley, who are taking an Uber back to the hotel) gets back into the limo. Ryan has to be carried there by Travie because he blacked out after the song, but he’s back- just… barely. Vicky’s the only sober one there, and she laughs as she guides everyone in, one by one. Pete and Patrick are last to go in, and Pete’s about to close the door, but Patrick stops him.)_

“Okay,” Patrick says, to one of the camera men, it’s impossible to tell since they’re both together, “We have space in here, and I’m willing to let you guys come with us, because I actually like you guys, but _no cameras,_ cause Pete and I want to make out in peace. We’re all getting deep dish pizza before we go back to the hotel, you’re not gonna wanna miss out. And Brendon’s gonna show us one of his hidden tattoos.”

Brendon appears in the frame and he exclaims, “It’s on my ass!”, before he goes back into the limo.

Patrick nods. “I mean, everyone’s seen it already, but you’re not really part of the friend group unless you haven’t so… what’s it gonna be?”

Apparently Tyler and Josh want to be part of their clique and go get deep dish pizza, because Josh says, “Alright, awesome, we’ll come!” and then both cameras get shut off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tons of thanks 2 my bff lili smallghostkid for showing me 'caress me down' and telling me that it reminded her of gabe RIGHT when i needed it :}}}} sorry patrick but a scene of gabe singing it to bill was too good to pass up
> 
> for a chapter that i was pumped to write literally since april, this was a lot :/ harder and annoying to write. but i hope it came out alright! i pictured things so clearly in my head, the caress me down scene, the cha cha slide ('how low can you go' is my weakness... im ryan in that situation), halsey singing that song (it was supposed to be a full scene, same w ryan dancing to army of one), even the first dance. but... i did my best and i truly believe that so i hope u guys like it! 
> 
> and as promised- a spotify playlist of all of the songs i jammed to and imagined played at the peterick wedding (sadly i couldnt put all of them in the fic but ya know): https://open.spotify.com/user/umabdhrm/playlist/3K9fB2XF3QV6VUme2oftaQ
> 
> (i also put youtube links to tyler's cover of 'build me up buttercup' and brendon's cover of 'fuck her gently' in the fic, but you can easily youtube those! for tyler i was gonna do the basic 'cant help falling in love' but i love the cover of build me up buttercup,,, even tho tyler sings the wrong lyrics haha. and unfortunately bden's cover doesnt include ryan nor does he change the lyrics to fuck /him/ gently but... just imagine it)


	4. Post-Wedding (The Blog Post)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO this chapter is just a blog post... after struggling to write this MF chapter and even thinking that i should just delete it and leave it at chapter 3, i just decided to keep it like this. i know that its different and i feel kinda bad about it, but i want to get this off my chest so that i can write something else, and i didnt wanna keep you guys waiting. this feels very 1st person like and i know a lot of people hate that but... i didnt know what else to do.

via @deepbluehalsey on tumblr at 11:51pm- SUNDAY NIGHT

 

Late night rambling because I'm emo.

Anyways-

Badlands means the world to me and I can't believe it's out in less than 10 mins. 40:03 mins of my fuckin' soul. Badlands is fries at the diner, my on and off boyfriend (BTW- Sisky asked if you guys can stop requesting him on IG. tbh, all he posts is Pepe memes, so i dont even think you want to follow him. You'll get enough gross pics of us making out from me), it's gritty and grimy sex in a bathroom because you want to just feel, it's crying in a car and everything is blue, you make me blue. It's getting head and it's feeling like you're cold&evil, like I can tear you apart with my words. I hope you guys feel the same. I hope these words written in poetry club in high school, on a train, written in lipstick on my thigh, hit you as hard as they do me. Badlands is about leaving, and starting over. Badlands is the suburbs, and the city, and the park's swing sets, a goodbye kiss after a goodbye fuck and then you go right back to them, it's laughing and sobbing at the same time, it's chicago on a windy day and brooklyn late at night at the 24 hr dunkin donuts. Badlands is everything I've ever felt. I feel vulnerable. What if no one likes it? What if it was all for nothing? I hope it's not.

attached is a performance I did last night at Pete and Patrick's wedding and I sang roman holiday with my ex boyfriend in the audience (well we're together now......) and I was kinda drunk and I rewatch that performance and it felt so real cause I looked so scared and nervous and I love putting on this facade like I am so strong. But I hope you guys know that sometimes I'm not. that at the end of the day, I'm just Ashley. Ashley who got this amazing opportunity and ashley who, last year, had no idea what the fuck she was doing with her life. I dont know where I'm going with this anymore... maybe what I'm trying to say is: I'm human just like you. and this album is human too. I know a lot of people think that i am fake deep and all of my poems belong on here on tumblr, and that's okay if you think that, but these words are genuine and they have lived in my heart for so long and I'm so fucking excited to share them with you.

Thanks to everyone who made this happen.

william&gabe (yea they're still together, shocking), and josh and tyler (I know I won the bet but I like your shaved head. uh. sometimes?) and everyone else back at barrington. and to my muse, sisky-- i love you. i love you. we should get away on a roman holiday <3 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHHH THE PETERICK WEDDING IS DONE, BADLANDS HAS BEEN RELEASED, ETC!!! its kinda crazy to see these characters evolve... i started writing these characters in the fall of 11th grade and i just graduated high school last saturday and its like,,,,, so awesome that they kinda grew with me? like i never thought that i would keep writing these characters and write the freakin wedding of eccentric!peterick but i did and idk what point im trying to make rn but THANK YOU to anyone who is still reading and who has been reading this series because you guys are kinda on this weird journey with me! thanks for sticking w me even though i played everyone with this last chapter!
> 
> im not sure whats next for this verse... if anyone has suggestions lemme know! im not closing it but if it DOES end here just know that like... damn i love u guys and this verse sm i'll always have it in my heart haha. whenever i hear coldplay the eccentric!ryan in me is like AHHHHHHHHHHHH. eccentric is everywhere i go and im pretty okay with that. even though its just a fic. and even though the ethical person in me always cringes when i think long and hard about the gabe/william relationship...
> 
> ALSO- i have the tumblr URL that ashley uses in the blogpost saved. if you want it, lemme know! i just didnt wanna use anyone else's/her actual one ya know.


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